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Temperance Selections 

COMPRISING 

Choice Readings and Recitations in Prose 

and Verse from the Ablest Speakers 

and Writers in England and 

America 



Edited by 
JOHN H. BECHTEL 

Author of " Sunday School Selections," " Hand-book of Pronunciation,'" 
" Practical Synonyms," Etc. 



Philadelphia t \j 



The Penn Publishing Company 
1893 



i^: 






Copyright 1893 by The Penn Publishing Company 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Arraignment of the Rum Traffic, An . Bislwp R. S. Foster, . . 35 

Arrest Alcohol and Liberate Man, . 149 

Boys We Want, The A. Sargent . . , .46 

Boys— And the Bottle Rev. T L. Cuyler, D. D., 152 

Business Side of Prohibition, The . . Henry W. Grady, . . 131 

Closing Scene, The 172 

Constitutional Prohibition the Great 

Remedy, John B. Finch, . . 87 

Could I Have Borne It? . . . May E. Dustin, . . .163 

Cold Water, Mrs. Sigourney, . . 126 

Cry From the Depths, A . Charles Lamb, , 18 

Cup-Bearer, The 108 

Dare to Stand Alone, 60 

Deacon's Sunday-school Sermon, The James Clement Ambrose, 210 
Death of the Reveller, The . . . W. A. Eaton, ... 54 
Demerits of High License, The . . President Seelye, . . 155 

Destroyer, The Rev. H. M. Scudder, . 30 

Disenthralled, The J.G. Whiltier, . . .134 

Down Grade, The .... Thomas R. Thompson, . 137 

Dream of the Reveller, The . . . Charles Mackay, . . 157 

Drink's Doings, 219 

Earnest Cry, An ..... Mrs. F. D. Gage, ... 25 
Extract From a Speech on Temperance, Schuyler Colfax, . , 77 

Failure, Charles Quiet, . . .203 

Gaining Ground, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, . 112 

God's Work, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, . 171 

Great Scourge, The 188 

High License,, T. De Witt Talmage, D. D., 6 

House Full of Wine, The . . . Johnson Barker, . . 113 

How to Cur-Tail the Liquor Traffic, 213 

I'll Take What Father Takes, . . W. Hoyle, ... 217 
It is Coming, . . . . . . M. Florence Mosher, . . 5 

Leave the Liquor Alone, 138 

Liberty Rev. Father Walter Elliott, 100 

Life's Purpose, David Lawton, . . 92 

Lips That Touch Liquor Shall Never 

Touch Mine, The Harriet A. Glazebrook, 139 



IV 



CONTEXTS 



Liquor Traffic Antagonistic to American 

Liberty, John B. Finch, . . .184 

Momentous Question, A Schuyle}- Colfax, . . 12 

Multitude of Littles, The . . . Rev. Neivman Hall, . . 81 

My First Speech 33 

National Prohibition, . . . . T. De Witt Talmage, D. D., 168 
National Prohibition Party Our Only 

Deliverer. A Rev. Dr. J. C. Ray, . . 146 

New Declaration of Independence, The Gen. Clinton B. Fisk, . 190 
New Emancipation, The . . . Rev. Divight Williams, . 83 
lk No Saloons Up There," . . . Baltimore Methodist, . 61 
No Surrender: No Compromise! . Rev. J. O. Peck, D. D., . 207 
One Glass Too Much, 24 



T. De Witt Talmage, D. Z>., 128 
Rev. T. L. Cuyler, D. D., 28 

T. De Witt Talmage, D. D., 199 
Rev. T. L. Cuyler, D. D., 103 
James Russell Lowell, . . 69 
A. A. Phelps, ... 21 
, W. Jennings Demorest, 151 
Henry W. Grady, . . 160 

Geo. Lansing Taylor, D. D., 166 



Canon Farrar, 



Original Liquor League, The 

Our Platform 

Our Regiments of Reform, 

Our Warfare and Our Duty, 

Present Crisis, The .... 

Prohibition the Ultimatum, . 

Prohibition the True Anti-Poverty Party 

Prohibition a Blessing to the Poor, 

Prohibition the Only Safeguard for 
Youth 

Public Opinion, .... 

Put Out That Fire! William M. Taylor, D. D., 

Question of Nations, The . . B. W. Richardson, M. D., 

Reinforcement, 

Right Makes Might 

Rum Evil, The Irish World, . 

Rum the AVorst Enemy of the Working- 
Classes, T. De Witt Talmage, D. D. 

Saloon and the Home, The . . Rev. E. K. Young, 

Sample Rooms 

Shall America be Ruled Forever by the 

Liquor Power? Archbishop Ireland, . 

Signals of Distress ! .... Robert Cromptoi\, . 

Something to Hate, 

Something to be Done, . . . Mary D. Chellis, . , 

Sparrow Must Go, The .... John P. St. John, . 

Stepping in Father's Tracks, . . Louise S. Upham, 

Story of Santa Claus, A ... Harriet A. Glazebrook, 

Strike for Prohibition, .... 

Surrender, The Mrs. S. M. I. Henry, , 

Temperance 

Temperance, Wendell Phillips, . 



10 
107 
1&5 

97 
131 

48 

181 
143 

38 

194 
86 

106 
10 
51 
76 

110 
20 

17G 
21 

115 



CONTEXTS 



Temperance Star, The 
Testimony of Experience, The 
Think Before you Drink, . 
Thrilling Appeal, A 

Toast, The 

Tommy Brown, 
Touch It Not, 
Traffic in Ardent Spirits, 
True Victory, 
Two Revolutions, . 
Undressing Little Ned, 
Voice of Despair, The . 
Warning Against Wine, A 
What License Legalizes, 
What to Drink, .... 
Who'll be the Drunkards Then 
Wise Resolution, A . 
Women and Temperance Work, 
W r ord to Young Men, A . 



Mary Kyle Dallas, 
Common School Education, 
W. A. Eaton, 
Lyman Beeclver, » 
M. A. Maitland, , 
Abraham Lincoln, • . 



J. J. Talbot, 
D. L. Moody, 

Geo. S. Burleigh, . 
Tlios. R. Thompson, 
E,C. A. Allen 
Frances E. WiUard, 
John B. Gough, . 



66 

133 

95 

. 33 

118 

. 44 

14 

198 

40 

72 

134 

19 

90 

9 

219 

85 

. 58 

42 



Temperance Selections 
for readings and recitations 



IT IS COMING. 



T\0 you hear an ominous muttering as of thunder 

" gathering round? 

Do you hear the nation tremble as an earthquake 

shakes the ground? 
'Tis the waking of a people — 'tis a mighty battle 

sound. 

Do you see the grand uprising of the people in their 

might? 
They are girding on their armor, tliey are arming 

for the fight, 
They are going forth to battle for the triumph of 

the Eight. 

For the power of Bum hath bound us, and the power 

of Rum hath reigned, 
Till baptismal robes of Liberty are tarnished, torn, 

and stained, 
Till the struggling nation shudders as its forces lie 

enchained. 

It has filled the scales of Justice with unhallowed, 
blood-stained gold, 

5 



6 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

And her sword to smite Crime's minions, now lies 

powerless in her hold ; 
For the serpent of the still hath wrapt around it 

fold by fold. 

It hath trampled o'er the hearthstone and hath left 

it desolate ; 
It hath slain the wife and mother, it hath filled the 

world with hate ; 
It hath wrecked the noblest manhood and hath 

laughed to scorn the great. 

Shall it longer reign in triumph, longer wear its 
tyrant crown? 

Shall it firmer draw its fetters, firmer bind the na- 
tion down? 

Shall this grand young country longer bow and 
tremble 'neath its frown? 

No! Let every heart re-echo; rouse, ye gallant men 

and true! 
Eouse, ye broken-hearted mothers! See, the night 

is almost through; 
Eouse ye, every man and woman — God is calling 

now for you. 

M. Florence Mosher. 



HIGH LICENSE. 



WE are at a point in reformatory movements in 
this country where it is proposed to restrain o? 
control or stop the traffic of ardent spirits by com- 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 7 

pelling the merchant thereof to pay a large sum, 
say $500 or $1,000, as a license. It is said that this 
will have a tendency to close up all the small drink- 
eries which curse our cities, and only a few men can 
afford to sell intoxicating drink. This money raised 
by a high license will help support the poor-houses, 
where there are widows and orphans sent there by 
the dissipations of husbands and fathers. Don't 
you see? This high tax will help support the pris- 
ons in which men are incarcerated for committing 
crimes while drunk. Don't you see? This high 
tax will help support the court of oyer and terminer 
whose judges, and attorneys, and constables, and 
juries, and police stations and court-rooms find 
their chief employment in the arraignment, trial, 
and condemnation of those who offend the law 
while in a state of insobriety. Don't you see? How 
any man or woman in favor of the great temperance 
reform can be so hoodwinked as not to understand 
that this high-license movement is the surrender of 
all the temperance reformation for which good men 
and women have been struggling for the last sixty 
years, is to me an amazement that eclipses everything. 
My subject is, " High License, the Monopoly of 
Abomination," Do you not realize, as by mathe- 
matical demonstration, that the one result of this 
high-license movement, and the one result of the 
closing of all small establishments — if that were 
the result — and the opening of a few large establish- 
ments, will be to make rum-selling and rum-drink- 
ing highly respectable? These drinkeries in Brook- 



8 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

lyn and New York are so disgusting that a man will 
not risk his reputation by going into them; and if 
a young man should be found coming out from one 
of those low establishments he would lose his place 
in the store. Now, suppose all these small estab- 
lishments are closed up, and that then you open the 
palaces of inebriation down on the avenues. Here 
you will have a splendid liquor establishment. 
Masterpieces of painting on the wall. Cut glass 
on silver platter. Upholstery like a Turkish harem. 
Uniformed servants to open the door, uniformed 
servants to take your hat and cane. Adjoining 
rooms with luxuriant divan on which you can recline 
when taken mysteriously ill after too much cham- 
pagne, cognac, or Old Otard. All the phantasma- 
goria, and bewitchment of art thrown around this 
Herod of massacre, this Moloch of consumed wor- 
shippers, this Juggernaut of crushed millions. It is 
not the rookeries of alcoholism that do the worst 
work; they are only the last stopping-places on the 
road to death. Where did that bloated, ulcerous, 
wheezing wretch that staggers out of a rum-hole get 
his habits started? At a glittering restaurant or 
bar-room of a first-class hotel, where it was fashion- 
able to go. Ah ! my friends, it seems to me the dis- 
position is to stop these small establishments, which 
are only the rash on the skin of the body politic, 
and then to gather all the poison into a few great 
carbuncles which mean death. I say give us the 
rash rather than the carbuncles. 

T. De Witt Talmage, D. D. 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 



WHAT TO DRINK. 



THE Lily drinks the sunlight, 
The Primrose drinks the dew, 
The Cowslip sips the running brook, 
The Hyacinth heaven's blue. 

The Peaches quaff the dawnlight, 

The Pears the autumn noon, 
The Apple-blossoms drink the rain 

And the first warm air of June. 

The Wind-flower and the Violet 

Draw in the April breeze, 
And sun, and rain, and hurricane 

Are the tipple of the trees. 

But not a bud or greenling, 

From the Hyssop on the wall 
To the Cedars of Mount Lebanon, 

Is steeped in alcohol. 

From all earth's emerald basin, 
From the blue sky's sapphire bowl, 

No living thing of root or wing 
Partakes that deadly dole. 

I'll quaff the Lily's nectar, 

I'll sip at the Cowslip's cup, 
I'll drink the shower, the sun, the breeze, 

But never a poisoned drop. 

Geo. S. Bcrleigh, 



10 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

SOMETHING TO BE DONE. 



WHERE'S a battle to be fought, 
•*- A victory to be gained ; 

There's a country to be saved, 
A host from sin reclaimed. 

There's an enemy abroad, 

So subtle and so strong 
That the conflict must be fierce, 

The struggle must be long. 

We're recruiting for the ranks 
For years and years to come, 

That our numbers may not fail 
Ere triumph shall be won. 

Mary D. Chellis. 



PUBLIC OPINION. 



rTHE point of view from which I shall speak is 
-*- that of total abstinence. It is, I know, the 
unpopular view, the depreciated view, the despised 
view. By taking it I rank myself among those of 
whom some speak as unpractical bigots and ignorant 
fanatics. But, because I believe it in the present 
need to be the only effective remedy for an other- 
wise hopeless evil, therefore I take it undeterred. 
Public opinion, my brethren, is a grand power. 
It is a mighty engine for good if we can array it 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS H 

on our side. He who despises it must be either 
more or less than man; he must be puffed up by a 
conceit which mars his usefulness, or he must be 
too abject to be reached by scorn. He, therefore, 
that affects to despise public opinion stands self- 
condemned; but yet public opinion has, many a 
time, been arrayed on the side of wrong; and he 
who is not afraid to brave it in defence of righteous- 
ness, he who, in a cause which he knows to be good, 
but which his fellow-men do nob yet understand, is 
willing to be ranked among the idiots and fools, he 
is a partaker with all those who, through faith and 
patience, have inherited the promises. It was thus 
— it was for the cause of scientific truth — that 
Koger Bacon bore his long imprisonment, and 
Galileo sat contented in his cqII; it was thus — it 
was for the cause of religious truth — that Luther 
stood undaunted before kings; it was thus that, to 
wake the base slumbers of a greedy age, Wesley and 
Whitefield were content to " stand pilloried on 
infamy's high stage, and bear the pelting scorn of 
half an age; " it was thus that Wilberforce faced 
in Parliament the sneers and rage of wealthy slave- 
owners; it was thus, " in the teeth of clenched an- 
tagonisms," that education was established, that 
missions were founded, that the cause of religious 
liberty was won. The persecuted object of to-day 
is the saint and exemplar of to-morrow. St. John 
enters the thronged streets of the capital of Asia as 
a despised Galilean and an unnoticed exile; but, 
when generations have passed away, it is still his 



12 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

name which clings to its indistinguishable ruins. 
St. Paul stands, in his ragged gabardine, too mean 
for Gallio's supreme contempt; but to-day the 
cathedral dedicated to his honor towers over the 
vast imperial city where the name of Gallio is not 
so much as heard. "Count we over the chosen 
heroes of this earth/' says a great orator, " and I 
will show you the men who stood alone, while those 
for whom they toiled and agonized poured on them 
contumely and scorn. They were glorious icono- 
clasts, sent out to break down the Dagons worshipped 
by their fathers. The very martyrs of yesterday, 
who were hooted at, whom the mob reviled and 
expatriated; — to-day the children of the very gen- 
eration who mobbed and reviled them, are gathering 
up their scattered ashes to deposit them in the 
golden urn of their nation's history ! " 

Cakok Farrar. 



A MOMENTOUS QUESTION. 



THERE is a question that comes down to all of us, 
through the centuries, from the very birthplace 
of mankind, full of momentous interest to every one 
upon the footstool of God. It is that question 
which Cain asked of the Almighty; not as a ques- 
tion, but as a defence against the arraignment of his 
crime to his brother. It was, "Am I my brother's 
keeper? " 

In every civilized land throughout the globe, in 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 13 

every civilized nation and state, and community, 
the answer comes back to that question, You are 
your brother's keeper. It is a responsibility that 
none of you can deny or evade. Every statute that 
you find in your statute-book for the punishment of 
crime and fraud is the question, u Am I my broth- 
er's keeper?" Every jail and prison that casts its 
gloomy shadows over the land, every sheriff and 
police officer, is the answer that the community 
makes to the question, as mankind itself; and 
besides this, and better than this, every reformatory 
and ameliatory institution that blesses this land, 
joins in the answer that we give to the question 
that comes to us almost from the Garden of Eden 
itself. 

In the institutions of which we are so justly 
proud, where the mind is restored to those whose 
reason has been dethroned; in the asylum for the 
insane; in those institutions where the blind are 
almost made to see, the dumb to speak, and the 
deaf to hear; in every institution for the relief of 
the poor and distressed we have the answer of society 
to the question, " Am I my brother's keeper?" 

In this great world of ours, springing as we all do 
from the hand of a common Creator, believing as we 
do in His fatherhood and the brotherhood of man, 
every one whom you meet on your pathway is your 
brother. He may be poor, he may be rich, he may 
be penniless, he may be humble ; but they are breth- 
ren of the same dust, pilgrims of the same family, 
travellers to the same tomb. If God has blessed you 



14 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

with strength of will, that you have been enabled to 
fortify yourselves, it is for you to lift him up from 
that depth to which he has fallen, and put him 
upon his feet, and to redeem him, if possible, from 
a living death; worse even than the death of the 
tomb. It is the large-hearted, the social man, who 
can not resist the temptation of the social glass; the 
genial man, the generous man, whom the tempter 
finds its victims. It assails all classes alike; you can 
find it crouching at the hearth-stones of the poor, 
and it casts its gloomy shadow over the marble 
mantels of the rich. 

I tell you, my friends, there is only one way in 
which you can resist the temptation. There is only 
one talisman, and that is: touch not, taste not, 
handle not the unclean thing. 

Schuyler Colfax. 



TRAFFIC IN ARDENT SPIRITS. 



THE amount of suffering and mortality inseparable 
from the commerce in ardent spirits renders it 
an unlawful article of trade. 

The wickedness is proverbial of those who in an- 
cient days caused their children to pass through the 
fire unto Moloch. But how many thousands of 
children are there in our land who endure daily 
privations and sufferings which render life a burden, 
and would have made the momentary pang of infant 
sacrifice a blessing! Theirs is a lingering, living 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 15 

death. There never was a Moloch to whom were 
immolated yearly as many childreu as are immo- 
lated, or kept in a state of constant suffering, in 
this land of nominal Christianity. We have no 
drums and gongs to drown their cries, neither do we 
make convocations, and bring them all out for one 
mighty burning. The fires which consume them 
are slow fires, and they blaze balefully in every part 
of our land, throughout which the cries of injured 
children and orphans go up to Heaven. Could all 
these woes, the product of intemperance, be brought 
out into one place, and the monster who inflicts the 
sufferings be seen personified, the nation would be 
furious with indignation. Humanit]^, conscience, 
religion, all would conspire to stop a work of such 
malignity. 

We are appalled and shocked at the accounts 
from the East, of widows burned upon the funeral- 
piles of their departed husbands. But what if 
those devotees of superstition, the Bramins, had 
discovered a mode of prolonging the lives of their 
victims for years amid the flames, and by these pro- 
tracted burnings were accustomed to torture life 
away? We might almost rouse up a crusade to 
cross the deep, to stop by force such inhumanity. 
But alas! we should leave behind us, on our own 
shores, more wives in the fire than we should find of 
widows thus sacrificed in all the East; a fire, too, 
which, besides its action upon the body, tortures the 
soul by lost affections, and ruined hopes, and pro- 
spective wretchedness. 



16 TE3IPERANCE SELECTIONS 

Every year thousands of families are robbed of 
fathers, brothers, husbands, friends. Every year 
widows and orphans are multiplied, and gray hairs 
are brought with sorrow to the grave. Xo disease 
makes such inroads upon families, blasts so many 
hopes, destroys so many lives, and causes so many 
mourners to go about the streets, because man 
goeth to his long home. 

Can we lawfully amass property by a course of 
trade which fills the land with beggars, and widows, 
and orphans, and crimes, — which peoples the grave- 
yard with premature mortality, and the world of 
woe with the victims of despair? 

Could all the forms of evil produced in the land 
by intemperance, come upon us in one horrid array, 
it would appall the nation, and put an end to the 
traffic in ardent spirits. If, in every dwelling built 
by blood, the stone from the wall should utter all 
the cries which the bloody traffic extorts, and the 
beam out of the timber should echo them back, — 
who would build such a house? — and who would 
dwell in it? What if in every part of the dwelling, 
from the cellar upward, through all the halls and 
chambers, babblings, and contentions, and voices, 
and groans, and shrieks, and wailings, were heard, 
day and night? What if the cold blood oozed out, 
and stood in drops upon the walls; and by preter- 
natural art all the ghastly skulls and bones of the 
victims destroyed by intemperance should stand 
upon the walls, in horrid sculpture within and with- 
out the building, — who would rear such a building?. 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 17 

What if at eventide, and at midnight, the airy 
forms of men destroyed by intemperance were 
dimly seen haunting the distilleries and stores where 
they received their bane, — following the track of 
the ship engaged in commerce, — walking upon the 
waves, — flitting athwart the deck, — sitting upon the 
rigging, — and sending up from the hold within, and 
from the waves without, groans, and loud laments, 
and wailings? Who would attend such stores? 
Who would labor in such distilleries? Who would 
navigate such ships? 

Oh! were the sky over our heads one great whis- 
pering-gallery, bringing down about us all the lam- 
entation and woe which intemperance creates, and 
the firm earth one sonorous medium of sound, bring- 
ing up around us from beneath, the wailings of the 
lost, whom the commerce in ardent spirits had sent 
thither, — these tremendous realities, assailing our 
sense, would invigorate our conscience, and give de- 
cision to our purpose of reformation. But these 
evils are as real as if the stone did cry out of the 
wall, and the beam answered it, — as real as if, day 
and night, wailings were heard in every part of the 
dwelling, and blood and skeletons were seen upon 
every Avail, — as real as if the ghostly forms of de- 
parted victims flitted about the ship as she passed 
o'er the billows, and showed themselves nightly 
about stores and distilleries, and with unearthly 
voices screamed in our ears their loud lament. 
They are as real as if the sky over our heads col- 
lected and brought down about us all the notes of 



18 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

sorrow in the land, and the firm earth should open 
a passage for the wailing of despair to come up 
from beneath. 

Lyman Beecher. 



A CRY FKOM THE DEPTHS. 



THE waters have gone over me. But out of the 
black depths, could I be heard, I would cry out 
to all those who have but set foot in the perilous 
flood. Could the youth, to whom the flavor of his 
first wine is delicious as the opening scenes of life, 
or the entering upon some newly-discovered paradise, 
look into my desolation, and be made to understand 
what a drearv thins" it is when a man shall feel him- 
self going down a precipice with open eyes and a 
passive will ; to see his destruction, and have no 
power to stop it, and yet to feel it all the way ema- 
nating from himself ; to perceive all goodness emp- 
tied out of him, and yet not to be able to forget a 
time when it was otherwise ; to bear about the piteous 
spectacle of his own self-ruin ; could he see my 
fevered eye, feverish with last flight's drinking, and 
feverishly looking forward for this night's repetition 
of the folly ; could he feel the death, out of which 
1 cry hourly with feebler outcry to be delivered, it 
were enough to make him dash the sparkling bever- 
age to the earth in all the pride of its mantling 
temptation. 

Charles Lamb. 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 19 

A WARNING AGAINST WINE. 



SOLOMON never said a truer word than what he 
says about those who tarry long at the wine. 
The questions asked by him, " Who hath woe? who 
hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath bab- 
bling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath 
redness of eyes? " are not only answered by Solomon 
himself, but we find his answers verified every day 
that we look into the news of the daily papers ; while 
around us, on every side, in the street, we may see 
living witnesses to the truth of what Solomon says. 

Many whom I meet, who have become slaves to 
strong drink, say : " Oh, that I had never com- 
menced to drink ; but now I have no power ; and 
drink is stronger than my own will ; stronger than 
my love for my wife and children ; stronger even 
than my wish for heaven." 

May the dear children be kept from ever touching 
wine, or any drink that will intoxicate, so that they 
will be in no danger of the terrible consequences 
that follow those who " tarry long at the wine." 

Remember, that those who are drunkards did not 
intend to become so ; they only thought of drinking 
just a little ; but the little kept increasing, and the 
love for drink kept growing stronger, until the eyes 
grew red, and the face grew bloated, and the step 
grew unsteady, until the one who might have been a 
blessing to the world and a help to those around 
him, has become a loathsome object and a terror to. 



20 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

his friends. It is not safe to take even a little strong 
drink ; because the love for it so soon becomes a 
strong and cruel master. 

War is terrible, and many of our best men have 
gone to their graves through war ; but strong drink 
has carried more victims to the grave, in America, 
than has war. 

Again, I beg of the young to touch not and taste 
not any strong drink. 

D. L. Moody. 



STRIKE FOR PROHIBITION. 



C TRIKE for prohibition; 
^ Ask for nothing less; 
Labor for its triumph, 
Pray for its success. 

Put it in your school-books ; 

Teach it to the young; 
Let it be the key-note 

Of the nation's song. 

Sound it from the pulpit, 
Through the public press; 

Speed it on its mission, 
Every home to bless. 

With its holy incense 
Burden ev'ry breeze 

From Lake Superior's waters 
To the Southern Seas. 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 21 

Waft it on the zephyrs 

Over ev'ry State, 
From Atlantic's borders 

To the Golden Gate. 

Onward let the echoes 

Eoll from shore to shore, 
Heralding the demon 

Banished evermore! 



TEMPERANCE. 



MOKE of good than we can tell, 
More to buy with, more to sell; 
More of comfort, less of care, 
More to eat and more to wear; 
Happier homes, with faces brighter, 
All our burdens rendered lighter; 
Conscience clean and minds much stronger, 
Debts much shorter, purses longer; 
Hopes that drive away all sorrow, 
And something laid up for to-morrow. 



PROHIBITION THE ULTIMATUM. 



fTHE effects of alcohol are a crowning curse. Its 
•*- horrors have never been fully portrayed. No t 
pencil is black enough to paint the picture and do 
it full justice. No tongue is eloquent enough to 
tell the sad story in all its dreadful details. The 



22 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

use of alcohol is a wide and withering scourge. It 
is a physical curse, blearing the eyes, blistering 
the tongue, deranging the stomach, paralyzing the 
nerves, hardening the liver, poisoning the blood, co- 
agulating the brain, inducing and aggravating many 
diseases, and digging myriads of premature graves. 
It is a financial curse, draining the pocket, inviting 
poverty, diminishing comforts, multiplying miseries, 
filling almshouses, and creating hard times. It is a 
mental curse, clouding the judgment, dethroning 
the reason, promoting ignorance, producing imbe- 
cility, and transforming its unhappy victims into 
maniacs and fools. It is a moral curse, weakening 
the will, inflaming the passions, hushing the voice 
of conscience, and preparing the way for every vice 
and crime. 

The attendant miseries of drunkenness swarm like 
a locust plague. In the slimy trail of this alcoholic 
serpent you find everything that is dark and dread- 
ful — everything that is regretful and ruinous. You 
find men without manhood, women without woman- 
hood, age without solace, and infancy without hope. 
You find want and woe, rags and wretchedness, 
squalor and filth, disease and death. You find 
broken vows, broken bones, broken fortunes, broken 
hopes and broken hearts. You find bad manners 
and bad morals; bad words and bad actions; bad 
reputations and bad characters; bad plans and bad 
performances; bad parents and bad children; a bad 
beginning and a bad end. Surely, intemperance is 
the crowning curse of American society. 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 23 

The liquor-traffic is a gigantic crime. I bring 
against it the following indictments : 

It is a destroying intruder. We need the store, 
the school, the mill, the church. These are all up- 
lifting forces, and we bid them a hearty welcome. 
But where under the shining sun is there any need 
of a brewery, a distillery, or a dram-shop? What 
want does that supply? What sorrow does that 
alleviate? What home does that make happy? 
Does it add thrift to your farms, skill to your 
mechanism, brilliancy to your brains, or nobility to 
your character? There is absolutely no need of a 
single saloon in all our broad domain. 

It is a fatal temptation and a snare. It is a man- 
trap and a death-trap. It multiplies its blandish- 
ments and lures its unwary victims to death and 
damnation. No w r onder that Lord Chesterfield, in 
words as eloquent as they were burning, should say 
of rumsellers : " Let us crush out these artists in 
human slaughter, who have reconciled their country- 
men to sickness and ruin, and spread over the pit- 
falls of debauchery such baits as men cannot 
resist." 

It is a commercial fraud. It is full of shams, hol- 
low pretenses, and false claims. It takes a blessing, 
and gives back a curse. It takes your money, but 
fails to return a fair equivalent. Bar-room bargains 
are essentially wanting in the principle of quid pro 
quo, or commercial honesty. Otherwise, saloonists 
would display their goods in their front windows, 
and put the drunkards they manufacture upon ex- 



24 ' TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

hibition at the county fairs, instead of skulking 
behind painted panes and screened doors. 

It is a monster of cruelty. It is conscienceless, 
unprincipled, and as cruel as the grave. It is a 
traffic in tears and groans and blood, in vice and 
crime and misery, 

A. A. Phelps. 



ONE GLASS TOO MUCH. 



H A HO! he has drunk one glass too much!" 

^Jy So I heard the jeering rabble say, 
As a young man from the bar-room door, 

Goes reeling forth down the drunkard's way! 
And I wonder as he staggers on, 

How many, many thousands such 
The same dark road to ruin have gone, 

By drinking just " one glass too much." 

A maiden sits at the banquet board, 

Her eyes aflame and her cheeks aflush; 
Her lips have quaffed of the fiery draught 

That drives her pulse with a feverish gush. 
Now she can laugh at the ribald jest; 

She shrinks not from the lecherous touch, 
The sentinel sleeps in the maiden's breast, 

Alas! she has sipped "one glass too much." 

A pilot stands at the quivering helm, 

While the waves with fierce and angry roar 

Are drifting his bark through storm and dark 
To rocks that frown on a dangerous shore; 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 25 

In vain do his nerveless, tremulous hands, 
With 'wildered clasp the tiller-rope clutch, 

A wreck on the rocks, a corpse on the sands, 
That sailor has drunk " one glass too. much." 

A thousand patriots carry their flag 

In the fight of freedom bold and high! 
With lofty courage they're forcing back 

The legions that strike at liberty; 
And the shout of triumph almost peals — 

The coveted prize they almost touch — 
When ah! from his horse the captain reels; 

And the day is lost by — "one glass too much." 

" One glass too much! " aye, tell me, who can, 

How long may the reckless tippler pass 
The poisonous dram to his thirsty lips 

And still escape from the fateful glass? 
Young man, so strong in your generous pride; 

Fair maiden, so blest with beauty's touch, 
Oh, tamper not with the tempting tide! 

The very first glass is " one glass too much." 



AN EARNEST CRY. 



GOD of the beautiful! God of the free, 
Earnestly, hopefully turn we to Thee; 
Turn we to Thee in this heart-stirring hour, 
Seeking for strength in Thy goodness and power, 
Asking our strength from the Wisdom above, 
Praying for light from the essence of love. 



26 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

Is not earth beautiful — is not earth bright, 
Teeming with usefulness — beaming with light? 
Hath not kind nature a harmony given — 
Stamping on all things the impress of heaven? 
Whence comes the sorrow, then — whence all this care? 
What makes this wailing — this cry of despair? 
Why all this discord — what makes the war? 
Man is the guilty one — Man makes the jar. 
Sold is his birthright, for passion, or pelf — 
Lost to the brotherhood — lost to himself; 
Conquered by appetite — blackened by sin — 
Smothering the God-like that struggles within, 
Joined heart and hand to the cold, selfish throng, 
Cursing the earth with oppression and wrong, 
Watching and waiting, like beasts for their prey, 
Dealing out death to the young and the gay, 
Blighting the buds of true love in the bloom, 
Scattering o'er all things misfortune and gloom, 
Crushing the heart of the mother with care, 
Crushing the heart of the wife with despair, 
Searing her love and destroying her trust, 
Laying the hopes of her heart in the dust, 
Beggaring her children, and making her life 
Weary, and wayworn with sorrow and strife, 
Binding in fetters the body and mind, 
That Thou in Thy wisdom made free as the wind. 

God of the beautiful! God of the free, 
Earnestly, hopefully turn we to Thee — 
Give us Thine aid this dread curse to remove, 
Give us Thine aid in our labor of love — 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 27 

Guide us and guard us and lead us aright, 

Let our lips utter truth, and our hands hold the light 

That shall show to our brothers the death-bounded 

path 
Their footsteps are treading in sorrow and wrath. 

Wilt Thou not soften the cold hearts of steel, 
Wilt Thou not teach men to love and to feel? 
Show to our rulers the right from the wrong — 
Show them the weak have a claim on the strong; 
Bid them go forth to the contest of might, 
Armed with the weapons of mercy and right, 
To conquer the spoiler that stands by the way, 
Clutching his victims by midnight, by day: 
Bid them destroy from off our fair earth, 
The demon of woe to the home and the earth; 
Let them not faint till the work is all done, 
And the shout goes to heaven of Victory won! 

Lead Thou our people to see the right way, 

(The night's darkest moments are just before day), 

Give to our mothers the light from above, 

Give to our wives the true spirit of love, 

Give to our sisters the strength of the hour, 

Give to our daughters persuasion and power, 

Give them strong faith in the work they've begun, 

Give them strong hope that the work will be done, 

Patience and love till they reach the great goal, 

And the waters of death cease to curse woman's soul. 

Oh! may our efforts and words of good cheer 
Usher the dawn of a glorious year; 



28 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

A year of relief to the poor and distressed, 

A year full of hope to the crushed and oppressed, 

When the weak and the erring may walk without 

strife, 
Untempted, untried, through the journey of life, 
And the victim redeemed from the rumseller's chain, 
Shall stand in Thine image, unfettered, again. 

Mrs. F. D. Gage. 



OUR PLATFORM. 



IF there is any one democratic principle known 
among men, it is the principle of the right of 
the people to abate a public nuisance, the right of 
the people to self-preservation. We claim, there- 
fore, the right of the people in every community on 
all this continent to suppress, by legislation, the 
great nursery of crime, pauperism, degradation, 
immorality, and the destruction of what is, after 
all, the life-blood of the nation — its brain and its 
working power. The liquor traffic lias not only 
drained the pockets and filled the almshouses, but 
it murders manhood; and, therefore, our American 
republicanism, as well as our Christianity, rises up 
in stern indignation, protesting against it, and de- 
manding the right to suppress it wherever the people 
see fit to exercise that right. 

Here are our principles: total abstinence, the 
reformation of men through the love-power, per- 
sonal persuasion, and the right to suppress the 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 29 

tippling-houses by law. We welcome to our ranks 
all who bate drink, and drinking usages, and dram- 
shops; we widen our platform for all prohibitionists 
and moral-suasionists, asking them to stand side by 
side, shoulder to shoulder, and to work in the line 
God calls them. With God's help, henceforth there 
shall not be dissensions, bickerings, and alienations 
in the ranks of this great Christian reform. There 
is work enough for us all. We claim that no man 
can work with us efficiently who does not so hate 
drink that he is willing to put it out of his house 
and to put it out of his own hand. If he prefers to 
work in the line of prohibition, so let him work; or 
in the line of personal persuasion, so let him or her 
work. We have before us an ideal; we are striving 
toward it. People say of us teetotalers, "You are 
idealists." We are. This nation would not be what 
it is to-day but for the striving toward a glorious 
ideal that the Abraham Lincolns and the Charles 
Sumners kept ever before them as the mark of the 
prize of their high calling. The Christian Church 
is a company of idealists striving toward the stature 
of a perfect man in Christ Jesus. Just imagine a 
church drawing up a creed full of compromises! 
How long would that church live? Imagine a 
pulpit striving to preach a piebald morality! No, 
the temperance cause can not compromise. We can 
not sink below our ideal, which is as lofty as the 
W^ord of God and the welfare of humanity. AVe 
believe in touching not and tasting not intoxicating 
drinks. We believe in all efforts to suppress the 



30 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

dram-shop, and we shall still strive toward that end. 
The moment we lower the standard, the moment 
we compromise, the cause is gone, and we are gone 
with it. 

I call upon you, therefore, to stand with us on the 
platform that to so many seems mere idealism. 
Paul was an idealist in the estimation of Athens, 
and Corinth, and Eome. If Paul had abated one 
jot, or compromised one line, where would the 
Gospel of Jesus Christ be? Let us put the mark 
as high as heaven. Let us take our tempted fellow- 
creatures by the hand, pointing them to that mark, 
bid them strive toward it, and ask God to help us 
to help them toward it. This is no hour for retreat. 
God summons this nation now, as He summoned it 
years ago, to enter the great conflict against the 
most terrible enemy of the nation's life and liberty. 

" Deeper than thunder on summer's first shower, 
On the dome of the sky God is striking the hour; 
Shall we falter before what we've prayed for so lon£, 
When the wrong is so weak and the right is so strong? " 

Rev. T. L. Cuyler. 



THE DESTROYER. 



INTEMPERANCE creates in man an ungovern- 
able appetite. Men who have fallen have told 
us it is not a desire, not an appetite, not a passion. 
These ordinary words fail to express the thing. It is 
more like a raging storm that pervades the entire 
being; it is a madness that paralyzes the brain, it is 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 31 

a corrosion that gnaws the stomach, it is a storm-fire 
that courses through the veins; it transgresses every 
boundary, it fiercely casts aside every barrier, it 
regards no motive, it silences reason, it stifles con- 
science, it tramples upon prudence, it overleaps 
everything that you choose to put in its way, and 
eternal life and the claims of God are as feathers, 
which it blows out of its path. 

What does it do to man's body? It diseases it; it 
crazes his brain, it blasts his nerves, it consumes his 
liver, it destroys his stomach, it inflames his heart, 
it sends a fiery flood of conflagration through all the 
tissues; it so saps the recuperative energies of man's 
body, that oftentimes a little scratch upon a drunk- 
ard's skin is a greater injury than a bayonet-thrust 
through and through the body of a temperate man. 
It not only does this, but the ruin that it brings into 
the nervous system often culminates in delirium 
tremens. Have you ever seen a man under its influ- 
ence? Have you heard him mutter, and jabber, and 
leer, and rave like an idiot? Have you heard him 
moan, cry, shriek, curse and rave, as he tried to 
skulk under the bedclothes? Have you looked into 
his eyes, and seen the horrors of the damned there? 
Have you seen the scowl on his f ace,so that the whole 
atmosphere was filled with tempest? Have you 
seen him heave on his bed, as though his body was 
undulating upon the rolling waves like a fire? If 
you have, then you know what it does to the body. 

It enthralls the will. A man's will ought to be 
king. The will of the drunkard is an abject slave. 



32 TEMPERANCE SELECTION'S 

The noblest and the mightiest men have been unable 
to break off the chain when it is once riveted. I 
verily believe there have been no such wails of 
despair out of hell itself as have gone up from the 
lips and heart of the drunkard who knew he never 
could be recovered. 

What does it do to the heart? If a man is made in 
the image of God's intellect, a woman is made in 
the image of God's heart. A tender woman is 
tenderest to her child. Is there anything that can 
unmother a woman, that can pluck the maternal 
heart out of her, and put in its place something 
that is powerful and fiendish? Is there any other 
agent on earth, or even in the world of the damned, 
that can so transform a mother's heart into some- 
thing for which thought itself can not find simili- 
tude? Satan himself can not do it; but rum can. 

It wrecks character. It is a double shipwreck; 
the drunkard not only loses his own respect but he 
loses the respect of everybody else. His own char- 
acter, with its real worthiness and with its reputa- 
tion, is gone, and his worthiness in the estimation 
of other people is gone too — both of them, slain, are 
buried in one grave; aud the grave-digger and the 
murderer, who are they? Bum. It wipes out the 
likeness of God from the soul, and makes a man a 
mixture of the brute and the demon, evolving the 
stupidity of the one and the philosophy of the other; 
and the Bible tells us that no drunkard shall ever 
inherit the kingdom of God. 

Eev. H. M. Scudder. 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 33 

MY FIKST SPEECH. 



TTOIPD scarce expect one of my age 
J- To plead for temperance on the stage; 
And should I chance to fall below 
Portraying all the drunkard's woe, 
Don't view me with a critic's eye, * 
Nor pass my simple story by. 

Large streams from little fountains flow; 
Great sots from moderate drinkers grow; 
And though I now ani small and young, 
No rum shall ever touch my tongue! 

Now, where's the town, go far or near, 
That sells the rum that we do here? 
Or where's the boy but three feet high 
That hates the traffic more than I? 



THE TOAST. 



POP! went the gay cork flying, 
Sparkled the gay champagne; 
By the light of a day that was dying 

He filled up their goblets again. 
" Let the last, best toast be ' Woman- 
Woman, dear woman,' " said he: 



34 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

" Empty your glass, my darling, 
When you drink to your sex with me." 

But she caught his strong, brown fingers, 

And held him tight as in fear, 
And through the gathering twilight 

Her voice fell on his ear: 
"Nay, ei-e you drink, I implore you, 

By all that you hold divine, 
Pledge a woman, in tear-drops 

Bather by far than in wine! 

" By the woes of the drunkard's mother, 

By his children who beg for bread, 
By the fate of her whose beloved one 

Looks on the wine when 'tis red, 
By the kisses changed to curses, 

By the tears more bitter than brine, 
By many a fond heart broken — 

Pledge no woman in wine. 



• to v 



"What has wine brought to woman? 
Nothing but tears and pain. 
It has torn from her heart her lover, 

And proven her prayers in vain; 
And her household goods, all scattered, 

Lie tangled up in vine. 
Oh! I prithee, pledge no woman 
In the curse of so many — wine! " 

Mary Kyle Dallas. 



J>DTGS AND RECTTAT; 

ARRAIGNMENT OF THE R 



nTHE es this spectacle in an 

*' lands? How has this alien grownup about 

ristian altars to such dreadful proportk 

It is here, and confronts us everywhere. It i3 the 

on the face of Christendom, the blistering 

shame on the fair countenance of Christian civiliza- 

: the rum-shop, and the lust god 

jious classes are Christian born. Think 
for a moment, tha: thil Christendom ha3 authorized 
by law and sanction of the State, :he creation of 
e I g g : :hat it has provided for its 
lj that it is here not in op :. to, bu: : 

at by formal and deliberate legislation, 
brought about by Christian votes, she has opened, 
in all he raghter-hc ises :: men, 

women and children, and of all virtue, and empl 
a million minians tc 1c thj :: that she 

has done this and continues tc k it with hei ryes 
open, and with full knowledge and purpose; that 
she has prepared and planned and deliberated in 
Government chambers for the production of these 
desperate classes; that her employed and licensed 
minions do this for " 

For a generation Christendom has been hearing a 
low growl from the kennel, where she is battening 
these wild beasts of passion: a growl in the kennel 

they have crushed their victims. "What means 



36 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

the roar to-day along Trafalgar Square and London 
streets?" It is the beast, loose and shaking his 
mane. Pamper him a little more on Government 
joints, and no kennel-bars will hold him. Fitted for 
raven, he will raven to the full. Rum engenders pov- 
erty; poverty and rum engender crime. From the 
Government rum-shop the wild beast hunts his prey. 
Is Christendom struck with judicial blindness, that 
she sleeps? Are her eyes holden that she cannot 
see? There are armies marching and countermarch- 
ing, with banners on which are emblazoned dyna- 
mite, anarchism, communism, nihilism, labor-league, 
no-Sabbath, down with the Church and State, 
recruited from the dram-shop and officered from the 
kennel. Are we so deaf that we do not hear the 
tramp of the gathering legions? Nations that 
license murder for pay will be murdered for plunder; 
nations that batten the wild beast of passion will be 
devoured by the wild beasts of rapine and ruin. 
The rum-hole must be closed or the rum-hell will 
engulf Christendom. What shall be done with 
Christian rum, is the problem. What shall become 
of the Christian world? Answer it with license; or 
authorization, or tempering policies, it is difficult? 
Strike it down, cage the beasts that vend the frenzy 
in the only place to which they belong, the criminal 
cell, and the kennel will disperse. There is but one 
remedy. We have had experience enough to have 
learned what this is. The Nation must put an end 
to transforming men into beasts by law, and must 
put the beasts who do it into a limbo where their 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 37 

sorceries will cease. The conflict is now upon us. 
It is a life-and-death struggle. The Government 
is on the side of the beasts; the people make the 
Government. Shall the rum fiend still carry on 
his carnival of death? Shall the rum minions, at 
the still, behind the bar, at the bar, in the gutter, 
or in the mansion, rule? Or is there enough of 
manhood among us to save Christendom from the 
damning shame? The answer we make to that 
question determines fate. If Christianity has not 
power to save Christendom, where is our hope? 
With what face, then, can we go to the heathen? 
There is no devil worship in Africa more degraded, 
more lost to all sense of shame than the demon 
worshipper of rum; no high priest of the sorceries 
of heathenism more diabolized than the minions of 
Christian States authorized to manufacture and 
vend the poison. Paganism can muster no mis- 
creants from all her realms more debased than the 
rum army; no festering pest-house — not even the 
Chinese opium den — more deadly to virtue than 
the Christian rum-hole. Must it be endured longer? 
Must the race be doomed to go into the future with 
this millstone fastened about its neck by legislators 
of Christian States? Are our tyrants too much for 
us? Then farewell to hope. 

Who doubts that there is a remedy for this state 
of things? It is not unknown. This evil is ram- 
pant not of necessity, but we have not the courage 
or desire to apply the remedy. It is simply needed 
that right-minded people combine to do the work; 



38 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

and in this, as in every case of a crying evil, the 
Church must lead in the reform. This is her most 
peculiar province. It comes in the line of the 
gieat class of moral issues of which she is the recog- 
nized guardian. 

It cannot be effected by moral suasion, by ser- 
mons, by prayers, or by abstinence of the well-dis- 
posed. It is a case where the arm of the law, 
and force repressive, is the only resort. It be- 
longs to the department of crimes; and must, of 
necessity, be met by criminal law faithfully exe- 
cuted. 

Bishop R. S. Foster. 



SAMPLE EOOMS. 



SAMPLES of wine, and samples of beer, 
Samples of all kinds of liquor sold here; 
Samples of whiskey, samples of gin, 
Samples of all kinds of bitters. Step in. 
Samples of ale, and porter, and brandy; 
Samples as large as you please, and quite handy; 
Our samples are pure, and also -you'll find 
Our customers always genteel and refined; 
For gentlemen know when they've taken enough, 
And never partake of the common stuff. 

Besides these samples within, you know, 
There are samples without of what they can do; 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 39 

Samples of headache, samples of gout; 

Samples of coats with the elbows out, 

Samples of boots without heels or toes; 

Samples of men with a broken nose, 

Samples of men in the gutter lying, 

Samples of men with delirium dying, 

Samples of men carousing and swearing, 

Samples of men all evil daring; 

Samples of lonely, tired men, 

Who long in vain for their freedom again; 

Samples of old men worn in the strife, 

Samples of young men tired of life; 

Samples of ruined hopes and lives, 

Samples of desolate homes and wives; 

Samples of aching hearts grown cold 

With anguish and misery untold; 

Samples of noble youth in disgrace, 

Who meet you with averted face; 

Samples of hungry little ones, 

Starving to death in their dreary homes. 

In. fact, there is scarcely a woe on earth 

But these " samples " have nurtured or given birth ! 

Oh! all ye helpers to sorrow and crime, 
Who deal out death for a single dime, 
Know ye that the Lord, though He may delay, 
Has in reserve for the last great day 
The terrible "woe/' of whose solemn weight 
No mortal can know till the pearly gate 
Is closed, and all with one accord 
Acknowledge the justice of their reward. 



40 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

TWO REVOLUTIONS. 



4 LTHOUGH the temperance cause has been in 
" progress many years, it is apparent to all that it 
is just now being crowned with a degree of success 
hitherto unparalleled. 

The list of friends is daily swelled by the addi- 
tion -of fifties, of hundreds, and of thousands. The 
cause itself seems suddenly transformed from a cold, 
abstract theory/ to a living, breathing, active, and 
powerful chieftain, going forth ' conquering and to 
conquer/ The citadels of his great adversary are 
daily being stormed and dismantled; his temples 
and his altars, where the rites of his idolatrous wor- 
ship have long been performed, and where human 
sacrifice has long been wont to be made, are daily 
desecrated and deserted. What one of us but can 
call to mind some relative, more promising in youth 
than all his fellows, who has fallen a sacrifice to his 
rapacity? He ever seems to have gone forth like the 
Egyptian angel of death, commissioned to slay, if 
not the first, the fairest born of every family. Shall 
he now be arrested in his desolating career? In 
that arrest, all can give aid that will; and who shall 
be excused that can and will not? Far around as 
human breath has ever blown, he keeps our fathers, 
our brothers, our sons, and our friends prostrate in v 
the chains of moral death. To all the living, 
everywhere, we cry, ' Come, sound the moral trump, 
that they may rise and stand up an exceeding great 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 41 

army;' 'Come from the four winds, breath! and 
breathe upon these slain that they may live/ If the 
relative grandeur of revolutions "shall be estimated 
by the great amount of human misery they alleviate, 
and the small amount they inflict, then, indeed, 
will this be the grandest the world shall ever have 
seen. 

Of our political revolution of '76 we are justly 
proud. It has given us a degree of political free- 
dom far exceeding that of any other nation of the 
earth. In it the world has found a solution of the 
long-mooted problem as to the capability of man to 
govern himself. In it was the germ which has vege- 
tated, and still is to grow and expand into the uni- 
versal liberty of mankind. 

But with all these glorious results, past, present, 
and to come, it has its evils too. It breathed forth 
famine, swam in blood, and rode in fire; and long, 
long after, the orphans' cry and the widows' wail 
continued to break the sad silence that ensued. 
These were the price, the inevitable price, paid for 
the blessings it brought. 

Turn now to the temperance revolution. In it 
we shall find a stronger bondage broken, a viler 
slavery manumitted, a greater tyrant deposed; in 
it, more of want supplied, more disease healed, more 
sorrow assuaged. By it, no orphans starving, no 
widows weeping; by it, none wounded in feeling, 
none injured in interest, even the dram-maker and 
dram-seller will have glided into other occupations so 
gradually as never to have felt the change, and will 



42 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

stand ready to join all others in the universal song 
of gladness. And what a noble ally this to the 
cause of political freedom? With such an aid, its 
march cannot fail to be on and on, till every son of 
earth shall drink in rich fruition the sorrow-quench- 
ing draughts of perfect liberty. Happy day, when 
all appetites controlled, all passion subdued, all 
matter subjected; mind, all-conquering mind, shall 
live and move the monarch of the world! Glorious 
consummation! Hail, fall of fury! Eeign of reason, 
all hail! 

And when the victory shall be complete — when 
there shall be neither a slave nor a drunkard on the 
earth — how proud the title of that land which may 
truly claim to be the birthplace and the cradle of 
both those revolutions that shall have ended in that 
victory! How nobly distinguished that people who 
shall have planted and nurtured to maturity both 
the political and moral freedom of their species ! 

Abraham Lincoln. 



A WOED TO YOUNG MEN. 



I WANT to say a word to the young men. It is a 
grand thing to be a young man; to have life 
before you. Life is behind me. My record is 
pretty nearly made; yours is to make. I can't 
change my record to save my life. I can't undo a 
deed I have done or unsay a word I have spoken 
to save my soul. No more can you. You are 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 43 

making your record. We old men have our record 
nearly made, and we can't change it. It is an 
awful thing when a man is sixty-five years of age to 
look out upon a stained, smeared, smudged record, 
and know he can't change it. Thank God, there is 
a man who can wipe out the iniquity sufficient to 
save us, as a school-boy wipes his sum off the slate. 
Even if a man is forgiven, it leaves a mark upon 
him he will never recover from — never. 

Young men, you have life before you, and you 
will have to map out which direction you will take. 
They tell us that eight miles above us nothing 
animal can exist. It is death to all animal life 
eight miles in that direction. It don't depend on 
the distance you travel, but on the direction; and 
when a man takes a wrong direction he knows it. 
Young men, you need not tell me when you are 
doing wrong you don't know it. You do. There 
is not a young man that is breaking his mother's 
heart by dissipation, but knows it; knows that 
every glass he drinks will be a thorn in the way 
for him. He knows it. What do men say? '" Oh! 
young men will be young men." They ought to 
be. I always look with suspicion on old heads on 
young shoulders. You young men can be young 
as long as you live. Years don't make a man old. 
There is many a man forty years of age who is 
younger and fresher at heart than some young old 
men of twenty-five who have broken themselves all 
down by dissipation. William E. Dodge never was 
old. He was young at seventy-eight, and entered 



44 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

into perennial eternal youth without ever knowing 
what old age was. So can you. 

I thought it was a terrible thing to be old. The 
first time I ever heard myself called old, it was in 
a railway station. I was looking after baggage, and 
one of these baggage smashers said: " Old man, 
what are you looking after? " It sounded queer. 
I don't mind it now. I don't like it when they 
say: " Let us pray for our aged friend/' I don't 
like that. That is a little too much of a good 
thing. There are always some people throwing 
things at the things you are fond of. A woman 
got angry at her husband and threw a squash-pie 
right into a picture, "God Bless Our Home"; and 
it was the best picture she had. 

I would say, then, to young men, there is no 
power, in my opinion, to-day to be so dreaded by us 
as a nation, as individuals, as communities, as this 
evil of drink, and it rests with young men to fight 
it. 

JOHtf B. GOUGH. 



TOUCH IT NOT. 



O AUCTIONED by custom, licensed by the State, 
^ Worshipped by rich and poor, by small and great; 
Sung of by poets, praised by doctors, too, 
Caressed alike by pulpit and by pew; 
The demon Drink reigns proudly o'er the land, 
And few indeed his cunning wiles withstand. 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 45 

The yellow barley bends to the light breeze,, 

And grapes in clusters load the trembling trees. 

God's precious gifts for man to love and use, 

And not to wildly squander and abuse! 

If from a king the mandate should go forth, 

From east to west, from sunny south to north, 

That all the barley waving in the field, 

And all the grapes the well-kept vineyards yield, 

Should in the ocean recklessly be thrown, 

There w T ould arise one universal groan, 

And men would execrate the tyrant's name, 

And pile his memory with undying shame. 

But man, a tyrant to himself, does worse: 

Turns a rich blessing to a frightful curse! 

Crushes the grapes and barley till the life 

Once filled with comfort is with ruin rife; 

God made the barley, but man made the beer; 

A truth which to the youngest child is clear. 

But some who love their drop, make this excuse— 

" God sent these blessings for our moderate use!" 

But what is moderation? tell me, pray! 

I know some hopeless drunkards who still say 

That they are temperate men; how can that be, 

When all the world their drunkenness can see? 

Where do the drunkards come from? Do you know 

They from the ranks of moderate drinkers flow. 

But do you say, "I never take too much" ? 

Pardon me, friend, I have known many such. 

Proud of their firmness, they have stood awhile, 

And met all cautions with a pitying smile; 

But habit, though a chain of flowers at first, 






46 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

Has grown a burning band they could not burst; 

And with the drunkards they must take their place, 

And share their awful misery and disgrace. 

We strive from our fair land to wipe this blot, 

And lift on high the warning — " Touch it not!" 

First, for your own sake, throw the drink aside, 

Let Temperance be your helpmate and your guide; 

Next, for the sake of weaker ones, abstain, 

And strive to win the drunkard back again. 

Oh, for His sake, who came to save the lost, 

" Rescue the perishing" at whatever cost, 

And lift your voice in palace or in cot, 

A voice of warning, crying — " Touch it not!" 

W. A. Eato^. 



THE BOYS WE WANT. 



BOYS, we want you— Our Country wants 
True-hearted, noble boys, 
To make your world a happier place, 

To purify its joys; 
To stand among the leaders 
Of every righteous cause, 
To spread o'er all the nation 
Right, just and blessed laws. 

Boys, we want you — Patriots call 

You to the conflict now; 
Beneath the yoke of fashion's power 

See millions daily bow. 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 47 

There are hearts with grief overflowing; 

Let us cheer them, if we can. 
Come and help to burst the fetters 

Which surround your fellow-man. 

Boys, we want you — Temperance wants 

Firm, consistent lives to-day; 
Victory marks her glorious progress, 

Homes are bright beneath her sway. 
Shall the drunkard, lost for ever 

In despair and anguish, die? 
Let us take the pledge to save him — 

All together — you and L 

Boys, we want you — Jesus wants 

Your hearts His truth to spread; 
Follow Him in storm and sunshine, 

Ever in His footsteps tread. 
There's a world of light and beauty; 

This is not the traveller's home: 
We are pressing on to Zion, 

And we want you all to come. 

Boys, we want you — Glory wants 

Every one her crown to wear; 
Each soul we've happier made on earth 

Will increase its lustre there. 
Time is flying, dashing onward; 

Soon our day's work must be done; 
And an earnest, prayerful life, boys, 

Is eternity begun. 

A. Sargent. 



48 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

THE RUM EVIL. 



IN the midnight calm and holy, when the world 
has sunk to rest, 
When the spotless dew is trembling on the lily's 

folded crest, 
"When the sighing of the zephyr creeps and steals 

upon the ear 
Soft and gentle as an echo wafted from another 

sphere, 
I will leave my heated room, leave the darkness and 
the gloom, 
I will leave the crowded city, quit the crime- 
polluted street; 
Wander through the meadows, where I may breathe 
a purer air, 
Feel a purer, holier, better earth beneath my 
straying feet. 

On through silent lanes where rustling trees are 

nodding overhead, 
Whispering tales to one another of the pleasant 

summers fled; 
On through fields where corn is waving, as if in a 

sleep is heard 
Some soft anthem stealing round it to whose melody 

is stirred: 
Stars are glistening in the sky, dew-drops glitter in 

reply, 
Silent converse with each other violets and daisies 

keep; 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 49 

Kobin with the scarlet breast dreams of mischief in 
his nest, 
Flowerets, tired of being happy, close their petals 
now to sleep. 

Yonder is a cot half hidden in a robe of red and 

green, 
Covered o'er with countless roses bathing in the pale 

moon's sheen; 
Surely nothing less than angels dwell within that 

cottage there; 
Winning fairies must be hiding round a spot so 

bright and fair. 
To the window I will creep, through the lattice I 

will peep — 
Alas! that such an Eden should have such a hell 

within; 
See the drunken father lie with his children weep- 
ing by, 
And a bower of beauty blackened with the awful 

brand of sin. 

Out again upon the highway, all my heart with 

sickness numb, 
From that cottage quickly flying to a village now I 

come; 
Eows of cottages, surrounded by green fields like 

verdant seas, 
Or like hidden treasures crouching in the shadow of 

the trees. 
But as I am drawing near, frightful noises greet my 

ear — 



50 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

Curses like the yells of devils, oaths that taint the 

very air. 
Never city built by man since the world its course 

began 
Could eclipse the scenes of horror that within 

that village were. 

"Bum again/ 5 I faintly mutter, as my footsteps 

hurry by, 
On past sights of drink and riot, evil plague-spots 

to the eye; 
Out again into the meadows, here at least I may 

breathe free, 
In this solitude of nature no drink traces shall I see. 
Bivers glisten calm and bright in the moonbeam's 

spectral light, 
Laughing streamlets, never sleeping, leap down 

the green hillside; 
Now the nightingale's sweet song breaks upon a 

listening throng 
Of primroses and fox-gloves that beneath the 

hedges hide. 

But the magic note is broken by a shriek so loud and 

shrill 
That the streamlets seem to stagger in their racing 

down the hill; 
And I heard rude, clamorous voices, yonder by the 

river's brink, 
Grewsome curse and ribald laughter — can I never 

leave the drink? 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 51 

Back again into the town, with a spirit broken 
down, 
By the crime that ever meets me wheresoever I 
may roam. 
Vainly may I strive to flee, still the serpent's trail I 
see 
Blasting, ruining, destroying every spot 'neath 

Heaven's broad dome. 

Irish World. 



THE SPARROW MUST GO. 



JUST think of it ! The Mayor and Council, with 
u all the policemen of New Haven headed by the 
State authorities, moving in one grand procession, 
carrying banners inscribed, "The English Sparrow 
Must Go ! " And then, when all other efforts have 
failed, imagine the editor of the Palladium at the 
head of the Connecticut State Militia, leading a 
bloody charge, at double-quick, against a flock of 
English sparrows, and at each bound crying out in 
thunder tones, "The English sparrow must go!" 
Why this bitterness against the sparrows? They 
never destroyed our homes. They didn't "set the 
cause of Prohibition back twenty years." Nor have 
they interfered with the colored man's right to vote, 
stuffed a ballot-box or bulldozed any human being. 
They have not corrupted our politics, robbed the 
Nation of its manhood or a mother of her boy. 
Then what is the trouble? Why, the English spar- 
row don't vote, consequently he is like the Chinaman 



52 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

— got but few friends. If they only had "in- 
floonce," every sparrow family would be furnished 
with a brass-wire cage. But what evil hath this little 
sparrow brought upon our country? We turn to 
the columns of the Palladium for this terse reply : 

" Only a few years ago, the trees on the green 
were full of merry singing birds, that filled the air 
with their sweet songs and presented a picture of 
joyous happiness, as they flitted from branch to 
branch, or swooped down in the green grass in search 
of a worm. To-day not one of those birds can be 
found (nor worms either). They have been driven 
out by the sparrows." Just think of it — a naughty, 
naughty sparrow robbing an honest, upright jay- 
bird of his morning worm ! No wonder that there 
should be a demand made that the combined powers 
of both city and State authority should be promptly 
used for the overthrow and immediate suppression 
of the authors of such an infamous outrage. " The 
English sparrow must go ! " 

" Only a few years ago," there was a home in 
New Haven. In that home was a happy, bright- 
eyed intelligent, rosy-cheeked Christian wife and 
mother, in the prime of her womanhood, full of hope 
for the future. Her husband was a manly man ; 
affectionate, generous, noble and true. In our coun- 
try's darkest hour, when it needed men, he bravely 
marched for the front under the old flag, offering 
himself as a sacrifice, in defense of the life of this 
nation. In that home were innocent children, who 
" filled the air with their sweet songs, and presented 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 53 

a picture of joyous happiness," which can never be 
forgotten. 

That husband and father to-day is a drunken, 
bloated, miserable, mental, moral, and physical 
wreck, down in the gutter, penniless and friendless. 

The rose has left the cheek of that poor wife and 
mother, her eyes are sunken and blinded with tears; 
no longer does she occupy that once happy home ; 
the joyous songs of her once happy darlings are 
heard no more. 'To-day, in a remote tenement, she 
is found with her little ones thinly clad, hungry, 
and penniless ; and as the winter storms drift 
through the open walls they hover over the embers 
of a fire that is almost gone. No longer do they 
greet papa at the gate with a smile and a kiss. With 
every ray of earthly hope gone, the dark clouds of de- 
spair settle thick around them. Oh, with what sub- 
missive faith that heart-broken mother turns unto God 
and says, " Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done." 

It was not the English sparrow that destroyed 
this home. But it was our Government's legalized, 
law-protected, fattened, and perpetuated hell-born 
liquor vulture. When we come to the judgment 
bar of God, the man who stood at the saloon counter 
and dealt out the liquor that destroyed that home 
will be no more guilty than the man who stood at 
the ballot-box and gave sanction thereto by his vote. 

Then let the fiat go forth, that by the grace of 
God, and the will of American freemen, this nation- 
alized, home-destroying liquor vulture must go. 

John" P. St. Johk. 



54 



TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 



THE DEATH OF THE REVELLER. 



THE lights were gleaming and the feast was spread, 
And at the table sat the boisterous guests, 
Shouting and singing snatches of coarse songs. 
The giver of the feast was an old man, 
Grown old in sin, and hardened more and more, 
Till age found him, 'mid the boisterous crew, 
A guide and prompter into any path 
That led away from virtue or from truth. 
His snow-white hair upon his shoulders fell 
In twining ringlets ; and his silver beard, 
Grizzled with age, clung to his hollow cheeks ; 
And on his brow the plough of time had made 
Deep furrows ; and his eyes were growing dim. 
But still his hollow voice rang on the night, 
And his eye glistened at the obscene jests 
Of his companions, and his skinny hands 
Beat on each other with a hollow sound 
At the rude singing of the rabble crew. 
It was an awful sight to see him there, 
So old and withered, yet so wildly gay ; 
So like a patriarch yet so like a fiend. 
The ruddy wine was poured incessantly; 
And as the brimming goblets passed along, 
The old man chuckled, and his eyes grew bright. 
He seized a flagon in his trembling hands, 
And held it to his lips, and shrieked aloud, 
The while it ran like blood upon his beard, 
And trickled to the floor. At each fresh draught 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS Rj 

New vigor seemed to nerve his aged limbs, 
And be sat more erect, and lifted up 
His trembling voice and sang an ancient song. 
The vaulted root re-echoed with the shouts 
Of the mad revellers when the song was o'er, 
And eagerly they called out, " Sing again ! " 
The old man took another draught of wine, 
And, smiling, once again essayed to sing. 
It was a love-song, — a sweet, simple thing, — 
A song he oft had sung in his fresh youth, 
When his young heart was gay as any bird's. 
And life was like a glorious dream of flowers. 
His trembling voice grew stronger as he sang, 
And his hard features softened, and a smile 
Played o'er his face, and in his glistening eye 
A tear-drop stood. His inmost soul was stirred 
With thoughts of other days, and his harsh voice 
Grew^ soft as woman's, and his radiant face 
Beamed with the light of tender memories. 
But suddenly his cheek turned deadly pale, 
And he fell backward, with his long lean hand 
Pressed to his side, as if in sudden pain. 
The guests, alarmed, ran quickly to his aid. 
And raised him up. and pressed a brimming cup 
Against his lips. But with a gesture he 
Put it away, and lifting up his head, 
Spake in a solemn voice, unlike his own, 
While the dazed revellers stood silent by : 

"Nay, tempt me not again! 

I will not touch the wine-cup in this hour — 



56 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

Too often have I felt its deadly power; 

And I would clear my brain 
In these last trembling moments, for I feel 
Death's icy hand across my temples steal. 

"Nay, do not smile at me, 
And mock me with false hope of many days ; 
My time has come : this is death's filmy haze 

That will not let me see 
Your faces round me, though the lamps are bright 
And the wine glitters in the sparkling light. 

" To die in such a place! 
I who once knelt beside my mother's knee 
To say my evening prayer. And must it be 

That I may ne'er retrace 
The pathway of my life, lest haply I 






Might do one deed of good before I die? 

"And must I die to-night, 
With the still echoing songs to mar my peace; 
To bid all thoughts of heavenly subjects cease? 

Ere the sun's golden light 
Streams through the windows of this awful place, 
Death will have stamped his impress on my face. 

" Oh, listen to my voice, 
Ye, who have often shouted with delight 
At my rude jesting, listen now to-night. 

Ye, who in youth rejoice, 
Be warned by me, and stay while yet 'tis time, 
Ere your young souls get hardened unto crime. 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 57 

"Oh, shun the wine-cup now! — 
Now, while the light of youth is in your eye; 
While hope weaves golden colors in your sky; 

Ere yet upon your brow 
The frosts of winter fall, and Time's rough share 
Plow, deep and lasting, bitter furrows there. 

" I have been wont to sneer 
At holy themes, and laugh at those who trod 
The path of virtue and looked up to God 

With holy, reverent fear. 
But now T I w T ould give worlds if I could pray 
The prayer I would repeat at close of day. 

"Kaise my head higher now — 
Open the windows, let me have more air, 
I cannot breathe! — why do you wildly stare? 

This cold sweat on my brow 
Is death, I know. I faint — I reel — I fall! 
Mind my last words. Ha! may God save you all! " 

His head fell back; and they who watched him die 

Stood gazing at each other for awhile, 

And then with soft, slow steps they one by one 

Crept silently away. The banquet-hall 

Is silent and deserted, and the walls 

No longer echo to the revellers' mirth. 

There is a solemn stillness in the place 

As if the ghosts of the departed hours 

Had found a refuge there. The owlet screams 

About the windows; and the moonlight falls 

Upon the empty board; and all is still. 

W. A. Eaton-. 



58 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

WOMEN AND TEMPERANCE WORK. 



AN old Quaker lady, in the time of the crusade, 
went with a young woman into a rum-shop. 
The saloon-keeper looked at them and said: " What 
have you women come up here for?" and an old 
lady of fourscore years looked up and said gently: 
" I will tell thee what I came here for. Thee knows 
I had five sons and many grandsons; thee knows 
here at thy counter more than one of my boys tasted 
his first glass; thee knows that more than one of 
them has gone to the drunkard's grave, and one by 
the suicide's knife; and can't thee let his mother 
lay her Bible down on thy counter, where her boy 
took that glass, and read to thee these words of 
God: 4 Woe unto him who putteth the bottle to his 
neighbor's lips' ?" That is what we have here in 
America in the rum-shops, something that devas- 
tates the places we care most for, ruins the destinies 
of those we love best, have borne most for, and would 
shield with most of tenderness. And we want to say 
just this: We believe that we can do something about 
it. I believe that you and I — you, young lady, you, 
young man, you, young child, you, man and woman 
of middle life, in the strength of your years — have 
something to do about it. This is one thing we are 
going to do: we are going to carry the Gospel to the 
drinking class, the class that is most beyond the 
pulpit's influence of any class. If we make an 
advance all along the line, upon a body so numerous 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 59 

we must call out the reserve force of the Church; 
and you know two-thirds of the church members are 
women, and we must call them out; they have had 
the most in jeopardy; they have suffered the most, 
and will put forth the most earnest efforts in this 
work. Then another thing: women as a class, and 
the women of the wealthier class, and those of the 
middle class, are not so worn out and tugged out all 
their lives with care and anxiety as men; they have 
more leisure. That is something that will bear 
demonstration. 

You and I are learning that not in the acquisition 
of a language, not in the mastery of a piano key- 
board, lies the supreme good; but in teaching the 
tender feet never to stray from the sure path, and 
in going out to seek him who is "away in the moun- 
tains bleak and bare, away from the tender Shep- 
herd's care." There it lies more than anywhere 
else on earth, and we are getting to believe it. 
Those who have been on tours of philanthropy, 
these Christian women, are getting more of an idea 
of making it a business. We have tasted the sweet- 
ness of benignant life. The truest, most nutritious 
food God has given us we find in well-doing. I 
think about it what a fine thing it is to know a 
language, and many of us will never know any but 
our mother tongue, but yet there are none here but 
can learn and teach the words of life, the language 
of Canaan. We may not be able to obtain the high- 
est proficiency in mathematics; but you and I can 
help many a tangled, wicked life into a plain solu- 



60 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

tion. It is a tender thing to be a sculptor and to 
chisel marble into beautiful shapes and forms, but 
it is sweeter to mold the clay of a child's character. 
It is a noble thing to be an architect and build grand 
cathedrals; but grander far to teach somebody who 
had not found it out, that the body and the soul 
were made on purpose to be the temple of the Holy 
Ghost, in which shall dwell nothing that is not 
pure and white and clean. It is a grand thing, 
surely, to be able to trace upon the canvas features 
of beauty, but ah! to restore the image of God to 
the face that is really the face that smiles back into 
your own, to restore there the image of God, which 
was lost, that is a better office; and to sweep the 
harps iEolian, to strike the keys that tune with 
God's purpose in creation, that is a nobler kind of 
music than any ever learned from Beethoven or 
Mozart. That is for you, for me, and for every one 
of us, blessed be God's name. 

Frances E. Willard. 



DARE TO STAND ALONE. 



BE firm, be bold, be strong, be true, 
And dare to stand alone; 
Stand for the right whatever ye do, 
Though helpers there be none. 

Nay, bend not to the swelling surge 
Of popular sneer and wrong; 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 61 

'Twill bear thee on to ruin's verge 
With current wild and strong. 

Stand for the right! Humanity 

Implores, with groans and tears, 
Thine aid to break the festering links 

That bind her toiling years. 

Stand for the right! Though falsehood reign, 

And proud lips coldly sneer, 
A poisoned arrow cannot wound 

A conscience pure and clear. 

Stand for the right, and with clean hands 

Exalt the truth on high! 
Thou'lt find warm, sympathizing hearts 

Among the passers-by — 

Men who have seen, and thought, and felt, 

And yet could hardly dare 
The battle's brunt, but by thy side 

Will every danger share. 

Stand for the right! proclaim it loud! 

Thou'lt find an answering tone 
In honest hearts, and thou no more 

Be doomed to stand alone. 



"NO SALOONS UP THERE. 



DEAD! 
Dead in the fullness of his manly strength, the 
ripeness of his manly beauty, and we who loved him 
were glad. 



62 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

His coffin rested on his draped piano, his banjo 
and his flute beside it. And as we looked on his 
brown curls thrown up from the cold white brow, 
on his skilled hands folded on his breast, on his 
sealed lips, of which wit and melody had been the 
very breathings, the silence was an awe, a weight 
upon us, yet our voiceless thanks rose up to God 
that he was dead. 

Always courteous in manner, kind in word, oblig- 
ing in act ; everybody liked Ned, the handsome, 
brilliant Ned. 

Three generations of ancestors, honorable gentle- 
men all, had taken the social glass as gentlemen, 
but never lowered themselves to drunkenness; but 
their combined appetite they had given as an heir- 
loom to Ned, and from his infancy he saw wine 
offered to guests at the dinner parties, and, when 
he had been " a perfect little gentleman," was given 
by his father one little sip. 

He grew and the taste grew, and when his father 
was taken, all restraint but a mother's love was taken. 

As the only son of a praying mother, now the 
church would hold him up, now the saloon would 
draw him down; now his rich voice would join his 
mother's to swell the anthems of the church, now 
make the night hideous with his ribald songs. So 
all along the years he was her idol and her 
woe. 

When her last sickness was upon her, the mother 
said to a friend: 

" They tell me when I am gone Eddie will go 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 63 

down unchecked, that in some wild spree or mad 
delirium he will die. But he will not. His fathers 
created the appetite they gave my poor boy. His 
disgrace is their sin, and my sin, too. He saw it on 
our table, tasted it in our ice-creams, jellies and 
sauces. For this my punishment is greater than I 
could bear but for the sure faith that God has forgiven 
me- and will answer my daily, nightly prayers, and 
Eddie will die an humble penitent. It is just that 
I be forbidden to enjoy here the promised land, 
but I know whom I believe, and my boy will be 
carried safely over." 

As death drew nigh every breath was a prayer for 
"Eddie," and as he chafed her death-cold hands the 
pallid lips formed the words no ear could catch, 
" Meet — me — in — heaven." And his voice, rich and 
full, responded, " I will, mother — I will." 

And as from her mountain height of faith and 
love she caught a sight of that "promised land," 
with a seraph's smile she whispered, "I — thank 
Thee — Father," and was gone. 

And his uncontrollable grief made one say to 
another, "His mother's death will be his salvation." 

He covered the new-made grave with flowers, and 
when others had left the cemetery he went back and 
sat beside it until nightfall, and then went to his 
lone home, and the oppressive silence drove him out 
to w T alk. He passed a saloon; some of his old asso- 
ciates came out and said kind words of sympathy. 
His soul was dark and sad, and from the open door 
came light and cheerful voices, and he went in. 



64 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

Before the long spree was over he bade a crony 
" Take that old book out of my sight." 

That old book ! the Bible he had seen his sainted 
mother reading morning, night, and often mid-day, 
and from which he had read to her those suffering, 
dying days. 

Then a friend of his mother took him to her home 
and brought him back to soberness, remorse and a 
horror of himself. For months he did nobly and 
became active in Christian work, and refused all the 
urging to "just step in and see your old friends," 
and we felt there was joy in heaven. 

Then he was asked to bring his banjo and sing at 
an oyster supper at the most respectable saloon in 
town, where "no one is ever asked to drink." 

A wild spree was the result, and his robe was so 
mired he doubted if it had been white. And he lost 
hope, lost faith in himself, and worse, lost faith in 
God. 

Kind arms were thrown about him, and again he 
was placed upon his feet. Very humble, very weak, 
he tried once more to walk the heavenward path. 

"I am very glad to see you so well," I said one 
day when I met him. 

" I don't know how long it will last," he said, 
sadly. 

"Forever, I hope," I said, cheerily. 

" I shall try hard to have it, but there will come 
an unguarded moment — but you know nothing about 
it." 

Some two weeks after I met a physician. 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 65 

"I have a case for you ladies. Ned is very sick." 

" Has liquor anything to do with it?" 

"No, not all. He has pneumonia, but his old 
drinking has so ruined his stomach it will go hard 
with him." 

His nurse told us he thought he would die, and 
constantly exclaimed: " My wasted life! my wasted 
life! God cannot forgive it." He would fear to 
die, and pray to live to redeem his past; then he 
would fear to live, and pray to be taken away 
from temptation. So wore on a week, and then he 
gave up self and grew calm in Christ. 

One Sunday he said his mother was in the room 
and wondered we could not see her, and with a smile 
on his face, and "mother" on his lips he passed 
beyond. 

As I came out of the house one of his whilom 
associates, sober and sad, took off his hat and asked, 
"Is it all over?" 

Impressed with the vast meaning of these two 
little words, I bowed and answered back: 

"All over! " 

With a voice full of pathos he said: 

" The dear fellow is all right now. There are no 
saloons up there." 

I walked on, repeating to myself: " No saloons up 
there! Thy will be done on earth as it is in 
heaven." 

Baltimore Methodist. 



66 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

THE TESTIMONY OF EXPEKIENCE. 



T?OR nearly two hundred years license lias had pos- 
■*■ session of the entire field. But no one can affirm 
it has repressed intemperance. This is the point — 
the very pivot — of the question between license and 
Prohibition. License means liquor, and liquor 
means drunkenness. Drunkenness is seen every- 
where. It meets you in the streets and on the high- 
ways, in railroad trains, and, sad but true, too 
often under their wheels. You see it at clubs and 
dinners, at celebrations and public meetings. It is 
found in lockups, mayor's offices, and court-rooms. 
No place is exempt from its curse. Who does not 
know that license, high or low, means to sell, and 
sales mean intoxication? Look at your morning 
papers — they are the diurnal records of vice, folly, 
crime, infamy, and injury resulting from the sales 
of liquor. Their location is the bar-room and the 
saloon, where nightly orgies outrage all decency, 
and deadly brawls end in bloodshed and murder. 

The act of 1887 (the so-called Brooks High 
License Law,) is a license law, and can never rise 
above its own purpose and nature, viz., the sale of 
liquors; and sales mean drinking, drinking means 
intoxication, and intoxication runs into fighting, 
brawls, lewdness and bloodshed; and these mean lock- 
ups, the work-house, jail, penitentiary, poor-houses, 
and insane asylums. All these mean private woe 
and ruin, and public wrongs, expense, burdens, and 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 67 

taxation, running far above all that the highest- 
price license can repay. 

Surely the instruction of experience magnifies the 
wisdom of this declaration of the board of bishops 
of the M. E. Church, that "the liquor traffic is so 
pernicious in ail its bearings, so inimical to the 
interests of honest trade, so repugnant to the moral 
sense, so injurious to the peace and order of society, 
so hurtful to the homes, to the church and to the 
body politic, and so utterly antagonistic to all that 
is precious in life, that the only proper attitude 
toward it for Christians is that of relentless hostil- 
ity. It can never be legalized without sin. No 
temporary device for regulating it can become a sub- 
stitute for Prohibition. License, high or low, is 
vicious in principle, and powerless as a remedy." 

Consider now the testimony of experience to the 
success of Prohibition, and choose this day which 
gives the surest promise of quick and permanent 
relief from the liquor curse. 

In his message to the Legislature of Kansas on 
January 8, 1889, Governor John A. Martin makes 
the following plain and unequivocal statements in 
regard to the practical results of the Prohibitory 
Laws of that State: 

" There is no longer any issue or controversy in 
Kansas concerning the results or beneficence of our 
temperance laws. Except in a few of the larger 
cities, ail hostility to them has disappeared. For 
six years, at four exciting general elections, the 
questions involved in the abolition of the saloon 



68 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

were disturbing and prominent issues, but at the 
election held in November last, this subject was 
rarely mentioned by partisan speakers or news- 
papers. Public opinion, it is plainly apparent, has 
undergone a marked change, and there are now 
very few citizens in Kansas who would be willing to 
return to the old order of things. 

" The change of sentiment on this question is well 
grounded and natural. No observing and intelli- 
gent citizen has failed to note the beneficent results 
already attained. Fully nine-tenths of the drink- 
ing and drunkenness prevalent in Kansas eight 
years ago have been abolished; I affirm, with ear- 
nestness and emphasis, that this State is to-day the 
most temperate, orderly, sober community of peo- 
ple in the civilized world. The abolition of the 
saloon has not only promoted the personal happiness 
and general prosperity of our citizens, but it has 
enormously diminished crime; has filled thousands 
of homes, where vice and want and wretchedness 
once prevailed, with peace, plenty and contentment; 
and has materially increased the trade and business 
of those engaged in the sale of useful and whole- 
some articles of merchandise. Notwithstanding the 
fact that the population of the State is steadily 
increasing, the number of criminals confined in 
our penitentiary is steadily decreasing. Many of 
our jails are empty, and all show a marked falling- 
off in the number of prisoners confined. The 
dockets of our courts are no longer burdened with 
long lists of criminal cases. In the Capital Dis- 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 69 

trict, containing a population of nearly sixty thou- 
sand, not a single criminal case was on the docket 
when the present term began. The business of the 
police courts of our larger cities has dwindled to 
one-fourth of its former proportions, while in the 
cities of the second and third class the occupation 
of police authorities is practically gone. These 
suggestive and convincing facts appeal alike to the 
reason and. the conscience of the people. They 
have reconciled those who doubted the success, and 
silenced those who opposed the policy of prohibit- 
ing the liquor traffic," 



THE PRESENT CRISIS. 



Permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 

WHEN a deed is done for freedom, through the 
broad earth's aching breast 

Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from 
East to West; 

And the slave where'er he cowers, feels the soul 
within him climb 

To the awful verge of manhood, as the energy sub- 
lime 

Of a century bursts full-blossomed on the thorny 
stem of Time. 

Through the walls of hut and palace shoots the in- 
stantaneous throe, 



70 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

When the travail of the ages wrings earth's systems 
to and fro; 

At the birth of each new era, with a recognizing 
start. 

Nation wildly looks on nation, standing with mute 
lips apart, 

And glad Truth's yet mightier man-child leaps be- 
neath the future's heart. 



For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears 

along, 
Round the earth's electric circle, the swift flash of 

right or wrong; 
Whether conscious or unconscious, yet humanity's 

vast frame 
Through its ocean-sundered fibres, feels the gush of 

joy or shame; 
In the gain or loss of our race, all the rest have 

equal claim. 

Once to every man and nation, comes the moment 

to decide 
In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or 

evil side 
Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each 

the bloom or blight, 
Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep 

upon the right, 
And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness 

and that light. 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 7] 

Hast thou chose n, my people, in whose party thou 

shalt stand, 
Ere the doom from its worn sandals shakes the dust 

against our land? 
Though the cause of evil prosper, yet 'tis truth 

alone is strong; 
And albeit she wander outcast now, I see around her 

throng 
Troops of beautiful tall angels, to enshield her from 

all wrong. 

We see dimly in the present, what is small and what 

is great; 
Slow of faith, how weak an arm may turn the iron 

helm of fate! 
But the soul is still oracular — amid the market's din, 
List the ominous stern whisper from the delphic 

cave within: 
" They enslave their children's children, who make 

compromise with sin." 

'Tis as easy to be heroes, as to sit the idle slaves 
Of a legendary virtue carved upon our fathers' 

graves; 
Worshipers of light ancestral make the present light 

a crime. 
Was the Mayflower launched by cowards? steered 

by men behind their time? 
Turn those tracks toward past or future that make 

Plymouth Rock sublime? 



72 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

They were men of present valor — stalwart old icono- 
clasts — 

Unconvinced by axe or gibbet that all virtue was the 
past's; 

But we make their truth our falsehood, thinking 
that has made us free; 

Hoarding it in mouldy parchments, while our tender 
spirits flee 

The rude grasp of that great impulse which drove 
them across the sea. 

New occasions teach new duties. Time makes 

ancient good uncouth; 
They must upward still and onward, who would 

keep abreast of truth; 
Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! We ourselves 

must pilgrims be, 
Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the 

desperate winter sea, 
Nor attempt the future's portal with the past's 

blood-rusted key. 

James Eussell Lowell. 



UNDRESSING LITTLE NED. 



(t WHERE is 'Whisky Bill/' who used to drive 
»' that old white horse in front of a twenty- 
five-cent express wagon? " repeated the man in tones 
of surprise. 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 73 

" Yes, I want to know." 

" Well, now, it is a curious case," he slowly con- 
tinued ; " we all thought he had gone to the dogs, 
for sure he was drinking a pint of whisky a day ; but 
a few months ago he braced right up, stopped drink- 
ing, and now I hear he's in good business and saving 
money. It beats all, for the last time I saw him he 
seemed half under ground." 

When you go home at night and find that all's 
well with your flesh and blood, do you go to bed 
reasoning that the rest of the world must take care 
of itself? Do you ever shut your eyes and call up 
the hundreds of faces you have met during the day, 
and wonder if the paleness of death will cover any 
of them before the morrow? When you have once 
been attracted to a face, even if it be a stranger's, 
do you let it drop from memory with your dreams, 
or do you call it up again and again, as night 
comes down, and hope it may not lose any of its 
brightness in the whirling mists of Time? 

So "Whisky Bill" was hunted up. An inquiry 
here and there finally traced him to a little brown 
cottage on a by-street. He sat on the step in 
the twilight, a burly, broad-shouldered man of 
fifty, and in the house three or four children 
gathered around the lamp to look over a picture- 
book. 

"Yes, they used to call me ' Whisky Bill' down 
town," he replied, as he moved along and made 
room, "but it is weeks since I heard the name. No 
wonder they think me dead, for I've not set my 



74 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

eyes on the old crowd for months, and don't want to 
for months to come." 

"They tell me you have quit drinking. But one 
could see that by your face." 

" I hope so. I haven't touched a drop since Feb- 
ruary. Before that I was half drunk day in and 
day out, and more of a brute than a man. I don't 
mind saying that my wife's death set me to think- 
ing, but it didn't stop my liquor. God forgive 
me ! but I was drunk when she died, half drunk at 
the grave, and I meant to go on a regular spree that 
night. It was low down, sir, but I was no better 
than a brute those days." 

"And so you left your motherless children at 
home, went out, and got drunk?" 

"No, I said I meant to, but I didn't. The poor 
things were crying all day, and after coming home 
from the burial I thought to get 'em tucked away 
in bed before I went out. Drunk or sober, I never 
struck one of my children, and they never ran 
from me when I staggered home. There's four of 
'era in there, and the youngest is not quite four 
years yet. I got the oldest ones to bed all right, 
and then came little Ned. He had cried himself to 
sleep, and he called for mother as soon as I woke 
him. Until that night I never had that boy on my 
knee, to say nothing of putting him to bed, and you 
can guess these big ringers made slow work with the 
hooks and buttons. Every minute he kept saying 
mother didn't do this ; and the big children were 
hiding their heads under the quilts to drown their 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 75 

sobs. When I had the clothes off and his night- 
gown on, I was ashamed — broke down; and when 
the oldest saw the tears in my eyes, and jumped 
out of bed to put her arms around my neck, I 
dropped the name of ' Whisky Bill ' right then and 
there forever." 

" And little Ned?" 

"May be I'd have weakened but for him," replied 
the man, wiping his eyes. 

"After I got the child's night-gown on, what did 
he do but kneel right down beside me and wait for 
me to say the Lord's Prayer to him ! Why, sir, you 
might have knocked me down with a feather! 
There I was, mother and father to him, and I 
couldn't say four words of that prayer to save my 
life! He waited and waited for me to begin, as his 
mother always had; and the big children were wait- 
ing; and when I took him in my lap and kissed him, 
I called Heaven to witness that my life should 
change from that hour. And so it did, sir, and I 
have been trying hard to lead a sober, honest life. 
God helping me, no one shall call me ' Whisky Bill ' 
again." 

The four children, little Ned in his night-gown, 
came out for a good-night kiss, and the boy cud- 
dled in his father's arms for a moment, and said : 

"Good-night, pa — good-night everybody in the 
world — good-night ma up in heaven — and don't put 
out the light till we get to sleep." 



76 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

STEPPING m FATHER'S TRACKS. 



ALL through night's wearying darkness snowy 
flakes 

In eddying whirls had filled the wintry air; 
As noiselessly as Time our blossoms takes 

They drifted here and there. 
And when the glowing, rosy-hearted morn 

Awoke earth's sleeping denizens anew, 
Behold! the snow upon the night-winds borne 

Had buried streets and lanes from view. 
The city hosts assailed the crested snow, 

And, as the Red Sea waves of old rolled back, 
Foam-banks on every side loomed up, and lo! 

All walked a solid track. 
But yonder farm-house, like a ship at sea 

Becalmed with all sails set, awoke to hear 
The low of kine, flocks bleating to be free, 

The while the day drew near. 

The farmer, anxious for his troubled herd, 

With sturdy stride the trackless snow-drifts passed; 
By their great need to strong exertion spurred, 

He reached the fold at last. 
His gladsome son, exulting, darted on, 

Swift as an arrow from an archer's bow; 
" I'll go," he shouted, " where my father's gone; 

I care not for the snow!" 
He stumbled, struggled, fell; yet still he tried, 

For pride or courage stayed his turning back, 
Until a new thought dawned. "Ill go! " he cried; 

" 111 step in father's track." 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 77 

How many glorious victories have been won, 

How many from tetnptation have turned back, 
Defying evil, just because a son 

Would step in father's track! 
How should you walk, father! lest too late 

You strive to call some erring wanderer back? 
For precepts best on these examples wait 

That leave the brightest track. 
So live that when the deepening snows of age 

Shall hold your failing strength in bondage back, 
Your childrens' best and noblest heritage 

Shall be your shining track. 
And when the household and the hearth are gone, 

And tender looks and tones may not come back, 
Your mantle long may rest upon the son 

Who steps in " father's track/' 

Louise S. Upham. 



EXTEAOT EEOM A SPEECH ON TEMPER- 
ANCE. 



I HAVE come before you this beautiful Sabbath 
afternoon not to speak to you about political 
parties nor about the details of legislation. I come 
to speak to you, if possible, heart to heart, soul to 
soul, not to denounce, but if possible, to persuade. 
I come not to demand, but to plead with every one 
of you. I come to speak for that liberty which 
makes us free; that liberty which elevates body and 
soul above the thraldom of the intoxicating cup. 



78 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

*We have passed through scenes that have rocked 
this land to its centre, on the question whether hu- 
man slavery should continue on our soil. It was but 
the slavery of the body. It was but for this life. 
But the slavery against which I speak to-day is the 
slavery of not only soul and body and talent and 
heart for this life, but is a slavery which goes be- 
yond the gates of the tomb to an unending eternity. 

We speak of the horrors of war, and there are 
horrors in war. Carnage, and bloodshed, and mu- 
tilation, and broken frames, and empty sleeves, and 
widows' weeds, and children's woes, and enormous 
debts and grinding taxation, all come from war, 
though war may be a necessity for saving a nation's 
life. But it fails in all its horrors, compared with 
those that flow from intoxication. We shudder at 
the ravages of pestilence, and famine, but they sink 
into insignificance when compared with the sorrow 
and anguish that follow in the train of this con- 
querer of fallen humanity. 

I see before me many distinguished in political, 
social and business life; and some of them I fear 
are to-day voluntarily enrolled in the great army of 
moderate drinkers. When you appeal to them to 
give the force of their influence and example to the 
prevention of the evil, their answer is, that they 
have strength to resist, they can quit when they 
please. Possibly they can; but before you all I can 
frankly acknowledge, from what I have seen in 
public and private life, that I dare not touch or 
taste or handle the wine bowl. You say you are 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 79 

strong. I can point you to those stronger tenfold 
over than you, who began as you have, and who lost 
the power of resistance before they knew they were 
in the power of the tempter. This demon, like 
death, seems to love a shining mark. He only is 
fortified who has determined not to yield to the 
first temptation. 

There is but one class whence he has never drawn 
a victim. That class has defied him, and will to 
the end. It is we who stand, God helping us, with 
our feet on this rock of safety, against which the 
waves may dash, but they shall dash in vain. I im- 
plore you to come and stand with us. I plead with 
you to come, for I believe that all mankind are my 
brethren. I believe in the fatherhood of God and 
in the brotherhood of man. And when I see an in- 
ebriate reeling along the streets I feel that, though 
debased and fallen, he is my brother still, created 
in the image of God, destined to an eternal here- 
after; and it should be your duty and mine to take 
him by the hand and seek to place his feet on the 
same rock on which we stand. 

That is what gave such a wonderful triumph to 
the Washingtonians, this recognizing the duty of 
individual responsibility. How many of you have 
gone to your fellow-man when you have seen him on 
the shore of destruction and tried to save him? 
Not one! Not one! How dare you on your knees 
ask God to bless you and yours, when you have not 
thus proved that you love your neighbor as yourself! 
This duty should be impressed on your souls by 



80 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

your ministers in the pulpit, by your writers in the 
public press. More than all things else in the land 
we need a temperance revival. Whom would it 
harm? Nopne. 

But come down to the individual home of the 
man who has become a slave to this demon. Do 
you find happiness there? Do you find content- 
ment, prosperity? Ah, no. Do you find the wife's 
cheek lighting up with joy as her husband comes 
home when the shadows lengthen? Ah, no: her 
cheek pales at the step of him who pledged her a 
life of devotion for the love she gave to him. All 
things are warning you to beware of yielding to this 
evil. The scriptures; the men reeling in their cups; 
your poor-houses; your prisons; the forsaken wives; 
all cry " beware." In the language of an eminent 
champion of temperance, " When drink can easily 
be given up by you, give it up for the sake of your 
example on others; if it be difficult to give it up, 
give it up for your own sake." 

Choose you this day whether you will stand with 
us on this rock, defying the snares, and evil, and 
misery, and woe, and desolation of the tempter, or 
whether, pursuing your present habit, you will go 
down the easy descent, till at last, dishonored and 
disgraced, having lost the respect of others and 
your own self-respect, you end a miserable and 
gloomy life by a home in the tomb, from which 
there is, if inspiration be true, no resurrection that 
shall take you to a better land. 

Schuyler Colfax. 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 81 

THE MULTITUDE OF LITTLES. 



THERE is no pleasure like the pleasure of doing 
good. Oh, the joy of being instrumental in 
leading some poor sinner from the error of his ways! 
How much of our work perishes! How much there 
will be in a year's time, when we think of it, that 
we will wish we had not spent any money or time 
or labor upon it! But nobody will regret the work 
he has done for God and for his fellow-creatures. 
No one will ever regret any sacrifice of money or of 
time expended in restoring the poor prodigal, and 
leading into the way of righteousness those who 
have erred and strayed from it. Let us all try and 
do something, and do not let us be deterred from 
doing anything because we can only do a little. The 
great ocean is made up of little drops. Your great 
army was made up of single men, and if one man 
had said, " I won't enlist, because I am only one/' 
where would have been your army, your Union, 
and your universal liberty? The most beneficent 
agencies that visit our physical world come in little 
things. The rain that fertilizes the earth, in what 
little drops it comes! And so God compares with 
these the inestimable blessings of His grace. " My 
doctrine shall distil as the dew. My speech shall 
come down as the rain, as the small rain upon the 
tender herb, as the showers upon the grass." Do 
not despise the day of small things. Our influence, 
if not exerted for what is good, may be exerted for 



82 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

what is bad; and our little influence may go to 
augment the greatness of something that is bad, as 
well as of that which is good. We may not be able 
ourselves to do some great thing, but we may put 
forth a little effort toward accomplishing a great 
result, which is achieved only by the multiplication 
of littles; and so, by our neglect, we may do a little 
toward the propagation of enormous evil. What a 
little thing is a flake of snow! Watch it, flying 
backward and forward, long before it can settle. 
Look up yonder on those mountain slopes, where 
some of you love to wander. The snow falls there 
during the months of winter, flake by flake, each so 
small and gentle; but the avalanche is gathering, 
and that vast snow-field is falling. Now as the 
spring advances, the sun gets a little hotter, and the 
snow gets a little looser; at the bottom there is some 
Jittle influence added to preceding influences. Now 
the avalanche is in motion, slowly at first, and now, 
with rapidly accelerated speed, it descends — it over- 
leaps the chasm, sweeps away the pine forest, 
thunders down the glen, and overwhelms the vil- 
lage. That avalanche was made up of single flakes 
of snow. So is it with the avalanche of drunken- 
ness and irreligion which is sweeping through the 
world, and destroying tens of thousands of precious 
lives, and the souls of immortal beings — the eloquent 
man, the cunning artificer, the prattling child, the 
daring youth, the delicate maiden, and the tender 
woman! Oh, what multitudes are being hurried 
down to destruction by this terrible avalanche of 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 83 

drunkenness that is made up of little things! — the 
single glass of the moderationist, as well as the 
twenty glasses of the drunkard; champagne as well 
as gin; the polite banquet, as well as the rude revel; 
the approving smile of the virtuous lady, as well as 
the drunken shriek of the abandoned outcast! I 
call upon you, my friends, to unite your energies, 
however feeble they may be, not to augment the 
murderous avalanche of intemperance, ignorance, 
and wickedness, but to come down as the small rain 
and tender dew of temperance and godliness. 

Key. Newmak Hall. 



THE NEW EMANCIPATION. 



GREAT Republic, rise and shake 
Thyself! thine iron fetters break, 
For thou art bound; thy statesmen fail, 
With brain and heart too weak! they quail 
Before the oligarchic throng- 
That build their bulwarks strong. 

Arise, Nation! 
Declare a new emancipation. 

The drink-lords, scarlet-vested, hold 
Their titles bought with yellow gold, 
And laugh to see the nation reel 
With burdens which they scorn to feel; 
They hold the keys of power, and faint 
The nation grows without complaint; 



84 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

An outlaw rises 
And smites the land which he despises. 

Have we a heart American, 

citizens! the rights of man 

"We boast as our inheritance, 

From shore to shore a wide expanse, 

And point to our exultant stars 

O'er mountain crags and harbor bars, 

And here a giant 
Holds sway against all laws defiant. 

The great Rotunda's shadow falls 
Ashamed upon his carnivals! 
Hark! down the Treasury vaults it rolls 
The " fifty millions " which controls; 
Ah, yes, ye statesmen! this is why 
The outlaw ye will not deny; 
He pays in millions 
And revels in yon broad pavilions . 

Think ye the great Republic still 
Will grow beneath this load of ill? 
The earthquake underneath us lies; 
The thunderbolt is in the skies; 
Columbia, grapple with thy curse, 
Or see thy chariot wheels reverse, 

Thy glory fading, 
And for thy sin thyself upbraiding! 

Where is the coming citizen, 

Whose hand shall grasp the patriot pen, 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 85 

And write the edict strong and grand 
Which shall emancipate the land, 
And crush the oligarch of drink? 
When men shall act as now they think, 

And all united 
Shall chase away the curse affrighted. 

Rev. D wight Williams. 



A WISE RESOLUTION. 



SHALL I ever be a drunkard 
Like the poor men that we meet 
Reeling, staggering, tottering, mumbling, 

Falling helpless in the street? 
Will the boys leave off their playing, 

Run in fright when I come near? 
No! Fll never drink the poison, 
Then I never need to fear. 

Shall I ever be a drunkard, 

With a base, dishonored name, 
Shrinking from the good and virtuous 

In defiance or in shame? 
Face all bloated, clothes all ragged, 

Out at elbows, out at toes? 
No! I'll never drink the poison, 

Then Fll never know its woes. 

Shall I ever be a drunkard — 
Can that — will that ever be? 



86 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

For the very men I pity 

Once were little boys like me. 
Some of them ne'er dreamed that ever 

They should bear the drunkard's name, 
But I'll never taste the poison, 

Then Til never feel the shame. 

Shall I ever be a drunkard? 

Never! By God's helping grace, 
In the noble ranks of Temperance 

I will keep a foremost place. 
Others may sip drops of brandy, 

Porter, whiskey, gin, or beer, 
But I'll never touch the poison, 

Then I'll never need to fear. 

E. 0. A. Allest. 



SIGNALS OF DISTEESS! 



WIS very sad to see a tear bedim a loved one's eye, 
-*- To see a cherished bosom heave an anguish- 
laden sigh: 

'Tis sad to see the cheeks grow pale where once was 
health's rich bloom, 

To see the brightness fade from eyes, 'neath sorrow's 
heavy gloom; 

'Tis sad to see a youthful face wearing a transient 
smile, 

And know the throbbing heart with pain is sorely 
charged the while. 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 87 

Yes, it is sad to know of hearts oppressed with heavy 

woes, 
But sadder still to see the bloom upon a drunkard's 

nose. 

It tells of good name, credit gone; of time and 

talents wasted; 
Of joys, of friendship, love, and home, all thrust 

aside untasted. 
For glowing health and peaceful sleep, and waking 

hours of gladness, 
It says he has exchanged remorse, disease, unrest, 

and sadness; 
The drunken brawl, an aching head, and garments 

soiled and rent, 
For decent clothing, wholesome food, and unalloyed 

content. 
Exposed to insult, mockery, and scorn where'er he 

goes, 
There is no signal of distress worse than a drunk- 
ard's nose. 

EOBERT CrOMPTOBT. 



CONSTITUTIONAL PKOHIBITION THE 
GKEAT EEMEDY. 



T STAND here to say the experience of all these 
-*- years proves that the legislature is no place to 
deposit discretionary power in dealing with the al- 
coholic liquor traffic. The power exercised by the 



88 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

legislature is the people's power delegated by the 
people to the legislature; and the people have the 
right to recover any right or power which they have 
delegated whenever they think they can better their 
condition by so doing. The change will be that the 
people will say what the public policy shall be, and 
direct the legislature to make the principle in the 
organic law operative by functional law. If the 
principle does not prove practical, the people can at 
any time change it, but it can never be changed un- 
til the people will it. 

So long as discretionary power is vested in the 
legislature, the drunkard-makers will annually use 
thousands of dollars if necessary to prevent right ac- 
tion; and when discretionary power is taken from 
them, one of the worst sources of legislative corrup- 
tion will be dried up, because the legislature can act 
in but one way, and it will be useless to try to bribe 
them. With prohibition a settled principle in the 
Constitution, every legislator who swears to support 
the Constitution must vote in favor of a prohibitory 
law, making the principle operative, or be a perjurer 
and rebel. 

I am aware that some will object that the Consti- 
tution is no place to define what shall and what shall 
not be crimes. The Constitution lays down princi- 
ples of government, and to attack or violate those 
principles is a crime against the Constitution and 
the government. The defining and adopting the 
principles makes its violation a crime against the 
government. To adopt a constitutional amendment 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 89 

prohibiting the liquor traffic, is to make the princi- 
ple of prohibition fundamental, and to change the 
spheres of authority to conform to the newly adopted 
principle. This was done in regard to African 
slavery. The people adopted the principle that no 
slavery should exist in the States, and left to Con- 
gress and the legislatures of the States the power to 
enact functional laws to carry out the will of the 
people. 

The people of Iowa, finding lotteries dangerous to 
their best interests, declared it a fundamental prin- 
ciple of their government that lotteries should not 
exist; and the State has not been cursed with them 
since the principle was adopted by the people. When 
the people become convinced that a principle is 
right, the place for it is in the Constitution. That 
there are objections to changes in constitutions I 
am aware; but they are not as strongly urged as 
were the objections to written constitutions sup- 
planting the unwritten ones. The constitution that 
cannot develop is a fraud, and a good basis for a 
despotism. To the objection that the amendment 
specifies a single institution, the answer is, that this 
institution is a special evil which is threatening the 
life of the government by debauching and degrading 
the units of the government. The question of its 
overthrow is the question of the existence or non- 
existence of republican institutions; and that the 
prohibition of the existence of such an institution 
is fundamental to the existence of the government 
it jeopardizes, is self-evident. 



90 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

You are the ones who are to say what you will do 
with the matter, and I can only urge upon you the 
necessity of doing something. The duty of the 
hoar is action, and the leaders should be in the 
front of the fight. Inaction and idleness produce 
the same results as treason to the principle. The 
liquor interests are active and aggressive, and the 
defenders of the home should be equally so. 

What we want is men and women who, for the 
love of home and country, will enter the struggle 
to win ; and after carefully studying the plan of 
action, draw the sword and throw away the scabbard, 
determined to only cease the struggle when victory 
comes to bless our homes and country. 

John B. Finch. 



WHAT LICENSE LEGALIZES. 



HAVING recently had my saloons closed up in 
Kansas and Iowa, and appreciating the advan- 
tages of High License, I have moved over here and 
leased commodious rooms in Mr. Lovemoney's block, 
corner of Euin street and Perdition lane (next door 
to the undertaker's), where I shall continue my 
business of manufacturing drunkards, paupers, 
lunatics, beggars, criminals and "dead beats " for 
sober and industrious people to support. Backed 
up by the law I shall add to the number of fatal 
accidents, of painful diseases, of disgraceful quarrels, 
of riots and of murders. My liquors are warranted 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 91 

to rob some of life; many of reason; most of prop- 
erty, and all of true peace; to make fathers fiends; 
wives, widows; children/ orphans. I shall cause 
mothers to forget their infants; children to grow up 
in ignorance; young women to lose their priceless 
purity; young men to become loafers, swearers, 
gamblers, skeptics and " lewd fellows of the baser 
sort." 

Boys and girls are the raw materials out of which 
I make drunkards, etc.; parents may help in this 
good work by alw 7 ays sending their children to buy 
the beer. 

On two hours' notice I agree to put husbands in 
condition to reel home, break the furniture, beat 
their wives and kick their children out of doors; I 
shall also fit mechanics to spoil their work, be dis- 
charged and become tramps. If one of the regular 
customers should be trying to reform, I will for a 
few pennies take pleasure in inducing him again to 
take just one glass and start again on the road to 
destruction. The money which he has been wasting 
in bread and books for his children will buy luxuries 
for me. And when his money is gone, I will persuade 
him to run in debt, and then collect the bill by 
attaching his wages. 

Orders promptly filled for fevers, scrofula, con- 
sumption or delirium tremens. In short, I agree to 
help bring upon all my customers, in this world, 
debt, disgrace, disease, despair and death, and in 
the next world the death that never dies. 

Having closed my ears to God's warning voice, 



92 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

having made a league with hell and sold myself to 
the devil, and having paid for my license, I have a 
right to bring all of the above evils upon my friends 
for the sake of gain. 

Some have suggested that I display outside the 
door assorted specimens of my art. But that would 
blockade the street. A fine assortment of my manu- 
factured wrecks may be seen inside, or at the city 
station-houses every morning, also in the poorhouse, 
the asylums, the prisons and on the gallows. 



LIFE'S PURPOSE. 



LIFE is not ours to waste it as we will; 
For high and noble ends a while 'tis lent; 
And if we fail its purpose to fulfil, 

Whatever we gain or lose, the time's misspent. 
The talents God hath given, and bids us use; 

The which we should improve with all our care 
His precious loan, alas! we oft abuse, 

And change His blessings to a hurtful snare. 
Allured, deceived by pleasure's vain display, 

Through drink what myriads make their life a 
blot; 
And in their sinful folly throw away 

Their highest good for that which profits not. 
Life's purpose miss; rob God of all they might 
Have been and done, and perish in the night. 

David Lawton. 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 93 

THE TEMPERANCE STAR. 



THE streets were rife with joyous life, 
For the Christmas time was near; 
Bat into our rum-ruined home 
There crept no sign of cheer. 

As I sat alone in the darkness, 

And looked through the coming years, 

My heart was full of sorrow, 
And my eyes were full of tears. 

Then I thought of the shepherds that kept their 
flocks 

On the plains of Galilee, 
How their hearts sent up that longing cry 

For the Christ that was to be. 

And I thought how the glory of God came down, 

Till the night shone like the day; 
Of the wise men's journey by night, and the star 

That guided them all the way. 

And my heart sent up its longing cry 

To the God who answered them; 
" Lord, into the dark night of my life 

Send a Star of Bethlehem! » 

I heard a step far down the walk— 

A firm and ringing tread: 
It reminded me of John's glad step, 

The day that we were wed. 






94 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

The moon slipped in and spread her robe 

Upon the poor bare floor, 
Till I thought of the streets in the City of Light, 

And — John stood at the door! 

There was a new light in his eyes, 

So tender and so proud; 
And a ribbon shone on his ragged coat, 

Like a star against a cloud! 

A little, silken, crimson star, 

That lighted all the gloom, 
And changed to a palace, grand and fair, 

The dingy little room. 

We did not speak a single word, 

But we knelt by the children's bed; — 

" God help me to keep it always bright!" 
Was all the prayer he said. 

The moon crept through the narrow pane, 

And fell like a blessing down; 
It touched wee Mary's flaxen hair, 

Till it shone like a silver crowi^. 

It kissed the baby where he lay, 

In his lowly cradle bed; 
" Thank God for the Star that rose to-night! " 

Was all that my full heart said! 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 95 

A THRILLIXG APPEAL. 



AT a certain town-meeting the question came up 
whether any person should be licensed to sell 
liquor. The clergyman, the deacon, the physician, 
strange as it may now appear, all favored it, One 
man only spoke against it because of the mischief it 
did. The question was about to be put, when there 
arose frozn one corner of the room a miserable 
woman. She was thinly clad, and her appearance 
indicated the utmost wretchedness, and that her 
mortal career was almost closed. After a moment's 
silence, and all eyes being fixed on her, she stretched 
her attenuated body to its utmost height, and her 
long arms to their greatest length, and then raising 
her voice to a shrill pitch, she called all to look 
upon her. " Yes," she said, "look upon me, and 
then, hear me. All that the last speaker has said 
relative to temperate drinking as being the father 
of drunkenness, is true. All practice, all experi- 
ence declare its truth. All drinking of alcoholic 
poison as a beverage in health, is excess. Look upon 
me! You all know me, or once did. You all know 
I was once mistress of the best farm in town; you all 
know, too, I had one of the best, the most devoted 
of husbands. You all know that I had five noble- 
hearted, industrious boys. Where are they now? 
Doctor, where are they now? You all know. You 
all know they lie in a row, side by side, m yonder 
churchyard; all — every one of them, filling the 



96 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

drunkard's grave! They were all taught to believe 
that temperate drinking was safe— that excess alone 
ought to be avoided; and they never acknowledged 
excess. They quoted you, and you, and you/' point- 
ing with her shred of a finger to the minister, deacon 
and doctor, " as authority. They thought them- 
selves safe under such teachers. But I saw the 
gradual change coming over my family and its pros- 
pects, with dismay and horror. I felt we were all 
to be overwhelmed in one common ruin. I tried to 
ward off the blow; I tried to break the spell, the 
delusive spell, in which the idea of the benefits of 
temperate drinking had involved my husband and 
sons. I begged, I prayed; but the odds were against 
me. The minister said the poison that was destroy- 
ing my husband and boys was a good creature of 
God; the deacon who sits under the pulpit there, 
and took our farm to pay his rum bills, sold them 
the poison; the doctor said a little was good, and the 
excess only ought to be avoided. My poor husband 
and my dear boys fell into the snare, and they could 
not escape; and one after another were conveyed to 
the sorrowful grave of the drunkard, Now look at 
me again. You probably see me for the last time. 
My sands have almost run. I have dragged my ex- 
hausted frame from my present home — your poor- 
house — to warn you all, to warn you, deacon, to warn 
you, ' false teacher of God's word!'" and with her 
arms flung high, and her tall form stretched to its 
utmost, and her voice raised to an unearthly pitch, 
she exclaimed: "I shall soon stand before the judg- 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 97 

ment seat of God. I shall meet you there, you false 
guides, and be a witness against you all! " 

The miserable woman vanished. A dead silence 
pervaded the assembly; the minister, the deacon, and 
physician hung their heads; and when the president 
of the meeting put the question, " Shall any licenses 
be granted for the sale of spirituous liquors?" the 
unanimous response was "NO!" 



REINFORCEMENT. 



YITE are now in the gloaming, but the morning is 
' * breaking, 

And upward the sun is intruding his ray. 
The times point the hour to mankind for awakening 

And girding their loins for the work of the day. 

We are not alone in our arduous labor, 

For thousands are watching the work that we do, 
The service of God and the good of our neighbor 

Will draw to our ranks from the good and the 
true. 

While we raise up our land to a better condition, 
And seek for the things which pertain to the 
right, 
Let us work, in the hope of the blessed fruition 
When virtue and conscience shall reign in their 
might. 



98 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

Prohibition must come, for the Lord has decreed it. 

Nature and providence point to the day. 
Jehovah has promised the gift when we need it, 

And God and his providence never delay. 

Prohibition is coming, for heroes of story 
Look down from jasper and amethyst wall, 

While martyrs and justified spirits in glory 
Shout Glory to God, He shall reign over all. 

Eeinforcements are coming, from hill and from 
mountain, 

From down where the river flows into the sea, 
And the valley is teeming, clear up to the fountain, 

With the men who say that our land shall be free. 

Eeinforcements are coming where children are grow- 
ing* 
And temperance teaching is kept in the schools. 

It surely can't be that the seed we are sowing 
Will raise up a crop of political fools. 

Eeinforcements are coming. The women are banded, 
The cohorts of home are combined for the fight. 

'Tis a union of hearts, as their Lord has commanded, 
To shut out the darkness and let in the light. 

Eeinforcements are coming; hark! hark! from the 
mothers 
Whose hearts have responded and come to the call. 
The sisters arise to the help of their brothel's 

To free from their bondage and raise from their 
fall. 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 99 

The widows and orphans are viewing our labors, 
They smile when we triumph, and weep when we 
fail, 

And victims of rum — our unfortunate neighbors — 
Are looking through bars from the prison and jail. 

Inebriate souls who are slaves to their drinking, 
And hardly expect to obtain a release, 

Are praying, when all that they dare is in thinking 
And longing for temperance, purity, peace. 

The goddess of justice has banished her weapon, 
Her arm is now bare for the stroke of her brand. 

Retribution is certain, whatever may happen, 
For justice shall rule in the laws of the land. 

The spirit of evil come down from the ages, 

His dark, slimy track showing back all the way — 

Approaches the doom which the prophets and sages 
Foretell should announce a prophetical day. 

The mouths of the dragon are busy in sinning, 
His thoughts are alive with the satanic sport. 

His power, though greater than at the beginning, 
Must cease; and he knows that his triumph is 
short. 

The last reinforcement, a radiant angel, 

Descends with the chain of the law in his hand, 

And temperance — part of the gospel evangel — 
Shall then be entrenched in the law of the land. 



100 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

He will seize on the dragon, and banish his power, 
And with it our sorrow, and anguish, and tears. 

"We will shout hallelujah! to welcome the hour 
Which brings prohibition, a thousand bright years. 

Then shout hallelujah! the Lord is descending, 

Millenial glories are coming to hand, 
The reign of the dragon approaching its ending, 

For justice shall rule in the laws of the land. 



LIBERTY. 



LIBERTY is a dear word. And it is behind that 
good word, consecrated as it is by the memories 
of many a great struggle (for liberty is one of the 
things that men worthy of the name die for), it is 
behind that good word that our enemies, the saloon- 
keepers, have entrenched themselves. Liberty? 
Personal liberty? What liberty do they claim? Is 
it the liberty of the man in the midst of his family? 
A man will die for his wife, his little ones, for their 
custody, for the right to train them, to live with 
them, to educate them and be to them husband and 
father. Why, it is from the door of the saloon that 
the bloodstained footsteps are tracked that lead 
down to the destruction of the family. The idea of 
the men who keep saloons claiming liberty — liberty 
to poison the family; to breed in it dissensions, 
social warfare, the demon of the worst example! 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 1()1 

They claim the liberty of the man — is that it? The 
liberty of that man is worse than that of one who 
would unlock the cage of wild beasts in the menag- 
erie and turn them loose upon the little ones of your 
family and of every family in the land. 

Then, there is another liberty that men claim — 
the liberty of the citizen. That is a great liberty, 
too. Now, is there anything like that sentiment of 
real civil liberty in that which inspires the saloon- 
keepers and their servants in the Legislature and the 
town council, that they should array themselves in 
Personal Liberty leagues, or that they should appeal 
to the general public, through the press and upon 
the platform, to the music of such a great word as 
that? They are the deadliest venom that poisons 
politics. It is from the doors of the saloon to the 
low caucus, and from the low caucus back to the 
saloon, that the footsteps are traced that mean 
the destruction of liberty; for they mean the de- 
struction of all civil dignity and -of all the honor of 
citizenship. We know that. Perhaps we know 
better than we can be told that, instead of their 
claiming any right of liberty because of citizenship, 
they are the ones who should be the most hated — if 
one could hate a person because of his vice — by those 
who love liberty and love citizenship. 

There is just one other kind of liberty that men 
can claim — I believe it is the highest kind — and that 
is what is called "the liberty of religion. " Of all 
truth that has rights and can claim liberty, religious 
truth stands first; for the more a man is filled with 



102 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

religion— that is to say, the more he is possessed of 
those truths which spur on, and those methods which 
actuate the noblest impulses of his being, in his 
dealings with all; and that is what religion is — the 
more fond he is of liberty in the state, the more 
capable he is of exercising safely and profitably the 
liberty of the man; for, after all, the end of religion 
is not simply restraint, the end of religion is not 
total abstinence, the end of temperance is not total 
abstinence; total abstinence, temperance, all re- 
straint is a means to an end, and the end of all 
religion is animation, progress, a movement upward. 
It is a glimpse of the God-given power that is within 
us, of possessing the divine. It is the impulse that 
leads us forward and onward ever. It is religion, 
union with God, elevation. So that true religion, 
or even religion that may be mixed with error but 
which may have truth in it, in so far urges men on 
to liberty everywhere; and the liberty of the citizen 
follows the liberty of the Christian. 

The man who has not his mind is as much worse 
than the slave as is the brute. It is the brutalizing 
of the man, and hence the imposing upon him of 
the brutish fetters of slavery, that makes the slavery 
of drink; and the slavery-making of the drunkard 
maker is the most detestable, hateful and deadly 
that is known. Liberty? Liberty forever — the lib- 
erty of the man; the liberty of the citizen; the 
liberty of conscience; the liberty of religion; always, 
forever; — more of it in greater and deeper draughts 
that liberty may enter into our very blood, that 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 103 

there may be less restraint upon the free limits of 
every man bom in the image of God, but no liberty 
to do wrong, deadly wrong; no liberty to make 
slaves; no liberty to poison liberty; no liberty for 
the saloon-keeper. 

Rev. Father Walter Elliott. 



OUE WARFARE AND OUR DUTY. 



Y\7E hold that all drinking of intoxicants is peril- 
» » ous and wrong, and that its influence upon 
others is very likely to be fatal to the drinker him- 
self. Therefore, on principles of Scripture and 
common-sense, we war upon all use of intoxicating 
beverages, knowing that that deceitful thing or 
mocker makes a man believe he takes it moderately 
when he is on the high-road to ruin. We plant 
ourselves, therefore, on the immutable rock of total 
abstinence, and oppose the drinking of any intoxi- 
cants. 

I would have the Church stand out as clear against 
the sin of the bottle and the curse of the dram-shop 
as it stands to-day against infidelity or superstition 
or crime of any kind. Why not? Is not drink the 
curse of curses? Why should the Church ignore it? 
Does it not lay its deadly hands on our boys and 
girls, husbands and wives, homes and hearts? How 
dare we, as Christians, turn a deaf ear to it, and 
wrap the mantle of our respectability about us, 



104 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

and pass on the other side while the victims of this 
curse lie bleeding on every side? God forbid! I 
would have every pulpit speak with no uncertain 
sound. 

Moody never told a more timely truth than when 
in reply to a query sent up at a hall in Edinburgh, 
"How shall Scotland be delivered from intemper- 
ance?" he said: "Let every minister and church- 
member put the bottle off his own table." That 
single sentence set Scotland thinking. A while 
ago a Scotch minister was beguiled by his doctor 
(as I have known many a man in this community to 
be beguiled by his doctor) to take whiskey to break 
up some dyspeptic or other trouble. The minister 
said, "I can not do this." The doctor replied: 
"Yes, you can; you must take it hot; you may take 
it every morning in your room when the girl brings 
up the hot water to shave." He allowed his con- 
science to be salved and blistered; he tried whiskey, 
but he tried it rather too long. One of the elders 
called to know what had come over the minister. 
The man-servant, Jamie, replied: "I dinna ken what 
is the matter, but there is something wrong. Wad 
ye believe it, some days he is shaving himself all 
day, and all the while he is ringing and ringing 
for more hot water." 

We want our ministers to give us a clear example 
wherever they go among the congregation, as well 
as to preach total abstinence from the pulpit. A 
minister cannot get a congregation higher commonly 
than his pulpit. If you smuggle a demijohn into a 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 105 

pulpit it will trickle out into every pew. Whenever 
the pulpit speaks distinctly for total abstinence, 
God honors such a ministry. He blessed them richly 
in the times gone by; He blesses them now and will 
evermore. 

And these reformed men — my heart and my 
prayers are with them. I see them coming up out 
of the depth of misery, one after another, scarred 
and bruised and rough, many of them almost 
ruined. God's people are ready to put the arm of 
faith and prayer around them and welcome them, 
and these men feel, as long as the Divine Arm 
steadies their weak arms and the loving Jesus sus- 
tains their tempted hearts, they will stand. But, as 
Gough said: "I would give that right hand if I 
had never touched it." I do not want my boy to 
go through life with his arm in a sling, maimed and 
mangled; I want that boy's arm clear and sound. 
I want that boy saved, as your boy lias got to be, by 
prevention. One ounce of prevention is worth a 
ton of cure. I honor the movement to save the 
drunkards. We have saved hundreds and thou- 
sands. The country is alive w r ith great temperance 
meetings, and glorious results are accomplished by 
them. Let me say that, after all, it is not only the 
saving of drunkards we aim at, but it is the mighty 
work of prevention in keeping back thousands that 
would be tempted. 

T. L. Cuyler, D. D. 



106 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

SOMETHING TO HATE. 



I LOVE the luscious grapes that cling, 
In clusters on the vine — 
Bright groups of neckless bottles filled 

With nature's harmless wine. 
But when, despoiled of all their charms, 

They fall to low estate, 
Their sweetness into poison turned, 
Fve something then to hate! 

I love the apples, blushing 'neath 

The sun's too ardent rays; 
They bring me pleasant memories of 

Dear childhood's happy days. 
But when, by "Folly's" hand transformed, 

They lure and fascinate, 
Their harmlessness and beauty gone, 

I've something then to hate! 

I love the graceful barley, which, 

Disguised in beard of gold, 
Goes flirting with the zephyrs like 

A cavalier of old; 
But when the cruel hand of art 

Doth such a change create 
That wholesome food's to poison turned, 

I've something then to hate. 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 107 

PUT OUT THAT FIRE! 



YI^HAT an enormous interest the drink-traffic has 
' » built up. They say in England, and with 
truth, that the drink-interest can turn an election 
over the country any day. I do not know but that 
it is true here, too. The power of it is tremendous. 
I am afraid to put an estimate upon how much 
money is sunk in it. And yet see how the law deals 
with it. You know that scene in '''The Pilgrim's 
Progress ; " it has a very beautiful spiritual meaning, 
and I am almost ashamed to take it out of its con- 
nection for the purpose for which I mean to employ 
it. You remember when Christian is in the house 
of Interpreter, and he sees a great blazing fire, and 
there are men trying all they can to put it out, but 
it blazes on in spite of all their efforts. He can not 
understand it; but Interpreter takes him round to the 
other side of the wall, where men are pouring in the 
oil, and then the whole thing is plain. That has a 
wonderful significance in the spiritual life; but do 
you not see the application of it here? Here are 
the licenses issued continually year by year for men 
to keep the fire up. Is it any wonder, therefore, that 
policemen, city missionaries, Bible-women, Scrip- 
ture-readers, and temperance societies should all be 
frustrated in their attempts to put it out? Here we 
are all laboring to put out the fire, and the licens- 
ing principle is doing everything it can to pour in 
oil upon it and keep it up. And the worst of it is 
that the people love to have it so. The people think 



108 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

it is a grand tiling to get that licensing money to 
support the public charities. How long is this 
anomaly and inconsistency, to continue in the midst 
of us? As long as the people permit it, and no 
longer. The responsibility is yours. 

William M. Taylor, D. D. 



THE CUP-BEARER. 



THE little cup-bearer entered the room, 
■*■ After the banquet was done; 
His eyes were like the skies of May, 

All bright with a cloudless sun, 
His hair a soft and wavy brown, 

His forehead white and high, 
And his gentle voice and courteous mien 

Were a joy to every eye. 

The little cup-bearer in his hand 

Carried a silver horn, 
Wherein there flashed a rare old wine 

With a tint like the purple morn. 
Kneeling beside his master's feet — 

The feet of the noble king — 
He raised the goblet: " Drink, my liege, 

The offering that I bring l* 

"Now, nay!" the good king, smiling, said. 
" But first — a faithful sign 

That thou bri-ngest me no poison draught- 
Taste thou, my page, of the wine!" 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 109 

Then sweet but gravely spoke the lad: 

"My clearest master, no! 
Though at thy lightest wish my feet 

Shall gladly come and go." 

"Rise up, my little cup-bearer!" 

The king astonished cried. 
" Rise up and tell me straightway why 

Is my request denied?" 
The young page rose up slowly, 

With sudden paling cheek, 
While all the lords and ladies 

Waited to hear him speak. 

" My father sat in princely halls, 

And tasted wine with you: 
He died a wretched drunkard, sire!" 

(The brave voice tearful grew.) 
"I vowed to my dear mother, 

Beside his dying bed, 
That for her sake I would not taste 

The tempting poison red! " 

" Away with this young upstart! " 

The lords impatient cry; 
But, spilling slow the purple wine, 

The good king made reply: 
" Thou shalt be my little cup-bearer, 

And honored well," he said; 
" But see thou bring no wine to me, 

But water pure instead! " 



110 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

A STORY OF SANTA OLAUS. 



-V 



JTUVAS Christmas Eve; the snow fell down 
-*- In whirling eddies, borne around, 

Blown hither, thither, on the ground, 
Above, all o'er the festive town. 
With glee the rich man's children cried, 

"Oh, welcome snow! glad sport in store ! 

And watched the snow-storm from the door; 
" Hard winter ! " many a poor heart sighed. 

The children's hearts beat gay and light; 

Gathered around the Christmas tree, 

Or on a parent's loving knee; 
For Santa Clans would come to-night! 
And dainty hands with loving care 

'Mid prattling of each childish tongue 

O'er downy pillows stockings hung, 
That Santa Clans might find them there. 

Oh, light and shade! The artist hand 
Must mingle tints of every hue 
To paint a picture stern and true 

The joys and miseries of a land. 

Then turn to sorrow's haunt, thy gaze! 
A dim light o'er a garret thrown, 
A care-worn woman, who hath known 

That saddening dream called " better days ! " 

Dragged down to drink-caused woes by him 
Whose vows of love her youth beguiled; 
A drunkard's wife, a drunkard's child 

Are doomed to want and penury grim. 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS HI 

This night the mother's heart was wrung: 
She saw, by dim light, faintly shed, 
01), grief! beside her darling's bed 

A little empty stocking hung! 

And she had naught to fill it left! 

No little toy, for childish treat; 

No golden orange, juicy, sweet, 
By him for drink, of all bereft! 
She slept that night, 'twas misery's sleep, 

Till Christmas carols, sweet and clear, 

Broke in the morning on her ear; 
Then she awoke to sigh and weep. 

Her mother-heart gave one wild throb; 
She heard her darling's fingers grope 
Around the cot, in childish hope — ■ 

Then came a silence, and a sob! 

It spoke of childish hopes all crushed, 
Of an awakening from a dream 
Bright with an almost fairy gleam, 

It told of joy's song, rudely hushed! 

Much grief the mother's heart had known, 
Hunger and cold and untold woe; 
But ne'er such anguish did she know 

As wrung her heart that Christmas morn! 

And this she felt grief's greatest sting 
Whate'er life's miseries or its w r oes 
None are so fierce, so dire as those, 

Man on his fellow-man doth bring! 



112 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

Oh, loving mother! tender wife, 

Whose hand upholds the wine-cup red, 
Yet seest no cause for future dread, 

Know this— that wine with woe is rife! 

He drank and fell, and thou dost blame; 
Hath not the cup the selfsame sting? 
When thou thy stone at him doth fling, 

Remember! Thine may do the same! 

Harriet A. Glazebrook, 



GAINING GROUND, 



LET those laugh who will about it; 
All their laughter is but sound. 
Let who will pretend to doubt it; 
Still the cause is gaining ground. 

Just so sure as yearly plowing 
Turns the furrow to the yield, 

Just so sure as broadcast-sowing 
Brings a harvest to the field, 

Just so sure all true endeavor, 

In despite of adverse fate, 
Used in any line whatever, 
Brings an answer soon or late. 

There is less of whisky-drinking, 

There's more deference to our cause; 

There's more serious, quiet thinking 
On the subject than there was. 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 113 

Do not think your star is waning, 

Weary worker, never fear! 
Yes, the cause is gaining, gaining, . 

Surely gaining year by year. 

Ella Wheeler Wilcox. 



THE HOUSE FULL OF WINE. 



A GAY little fly on a bright summer's morn 
Went buzzing about 'mid the clover and corn, 
Till, buzzed out of breath, he sat down on a flower, 

And thought he would just take a nap for an hour. 
A spider who built up a dwelling close by, 

Just wanting a morsel to make up a pie, 
Looking out of his window, delightedly sees 

This fat little fly coolly taking his ease. 
So he let himself down with his pulley and thread 

Till he came to a leaf that was over his head, 
And, speaking as kindly as ever he could, 

Began to persuade him he'd come for his good. 

" My dear little fly," said the spider above, 

" Fve a house full of wine and a heart full of love; 
You're welcome to both, and I've just come to say 

How glad I shall be of a visit to-day. 
I fear you'll take cold from the damp of this flower; 

There's room in my house, and I dine in an hour. 
Take hold of my arm, you have nothing to fear; 

I'll give you the best, both of welcome and cheer." 



114 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

So the poor little fly, with a nod of his head, 
Bowed, smiled, and consented to do as he said; 

And smacking his lips at the thought of the wine, 
Went up with the spider to rest and to dine. 

Up a street and an alley of lilies and grass; 

Bees, butterflies, crickets start up as they pass, 
And a small lady-bird ran to hide in a rose, 

For fear the great spider should tread on her toes. 
To his mansion he came; it was knitted with thread, 

And built upon briers, with leaves overhead. 
Without ringing the bell or tapping the door 

They enter at once on the back parlor floor; 
And the fly, seizing hold of a king-cup of wine, 

When he'd swallowed it down, really thought it 
so fine 
That a blue bottle full by his side on the floor 

He drained at a breath, and then asked for some 
more. 

He drank the drink till he suddenly found 

That spider and king-cups were all turning round, 
And, alarmed, he'd at once have been off like a shot, 

But he found that his feet were enchained to the 
spot, 
" good Mr. Spider! unfasten my feet/' 

Said the fly, "for I've a lady to meet; 
Oh! don't look so fierce — I'm dizzy and queer. 

Pray, pray let me go! I've been long enough 
here." 
'Twas all of no use, for the poor little fly 

Was killed by the spider to make up his pie — 






FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS H5 

A bee who was passing at twelve heard his groans, 
And a cricket at night saw the ante at his bones. 

There are men, like the spider, who " make up their 
pies " 
By luring their fellows and blinding their eyes; 
They tempt them with drink till they've come to dis- 
grace, 
And fasten their feet, like the fly's, to the place. 
They build up their webs, both in country and town, 
To catch high and low, from the lord to the clown; 
There are inns for the rich, and shops for the poor, 
Full of wine, gin, and rum to attract and allure. 
They'll perhaps talk to you of "their house full of 
wine/' 
And tempt you with that to come in and dine; 
But beware! and take care by the fate of the fly, 
For be sure they but want you to " make up their 
pie." 

Johnson Barker. 



TEMPERANCE. 



SOME men look upon this temperance cause as 
whining bigotry, narrow asceticism, or a vulgar 
sentimentality, fit for little minds, weak women, 
and weaker men. On the contrary, I regard it as 
second only to one or two others of the primary 
reforms of this age, and for this reason, — every race 
has its peculiar temptation; every clime has its 
specific sin. The tropics and tropical races are 



116 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

tempted to one form of sensuality; the colder and 
temperate regions, and our Saxon blood, find their 
peculiar temptation in the stimulus of drink and 
food. 

In old times, our heaven was a drunken revel. 
We relieve ourselves from the over- weariness of con- 
stant and exhausting toil by intoxication. Science 
has brought a cheap means of drunkenness within 
the reach of every individual. National prosperity 
and free institutions have put into the hands of 
almost every workman the means of being drunk 
for a week, on the labor of two or three hours. 
With that blood and that temptation, we have 
adopted democratic institutions, where the law has 
no sanctions but the purpose and virtue of the 
masses. The statute-book rests not on bayonets, as 
in Europe, but on the hearts of the people. 

A drunken people can never be the basis of a free 
government. It is the corner-stone neither of vir- 
tue, prosperity, nor progress. To us, therefore, 
the title deeds of whose estates, and the safety of 
whose lives, depend upon the tranquillity of the 
streets, upon the virtue of the masses, the presence 
of any vice which brutalizes the average mass of 
mankind and tends to make it more readily the tool 
of intriguing and corrupt leaders, is necessarily a 
stab at the very life of the nation. Against such a 
vice is marshalled the temperance reformation. 

That my sketch is no fancy picture, every one of 
you knows. Every one of you can glance back over 
your own path, and count many and many a one 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS \Yl 

among those who started from the goal at your side, 
with equal energy, and perhaps greater promise, 
who has found a drunkard's grave long before this. 
The brightness of the bar, the ornament of the 
pulpit, the hope and blessing and stay of many a 
family — you know, every one of you who has 
reached middle life, how often on your path has 
been set up the warning, "Fallen before the temp- 
tations of the streets ! " Hardly one house in this 
city, whether it be full and warm with all the 
luxury of wealth, or whether it find hard, cold 
maintenance by the most earnest economy, no mat- 
ter which,— hardly a house that does not count 
among sons or nephews some victim of this vice. 
The skeleton of this warning sits at every board. 

The whole world is kindred in this suffering. 
The country mother launches her boy with trem- 
bling upon the temptations of city life. The father 
trusts his daughter anxiously to the young man she 
has chosen, knowing what a wreck intoxication may 
make of the house-tree they set up. Alas! how 
often are their worst forebodings more than ful- 
filled! I have known a case — probably many of 
you recall some almost equal to it — where one 
worthy woman could count father, brother, husband 
and son-in-law, all drunkards, no man among her 
near kindred, except her son, who was not a victim 
of this vice. Like all other appetites, this finds 
resolution weak when set against the constant pres- 
ence of temptation. 

Wendell Phillips. 



118 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

TOMMY BROWN. 



H YlfHAT is your name? " asked the teacher. 
* » " Tommy Brown, ma'am/' answered the boy* 

He was a pathetic little figure, with a thin face, 
large, hollow eyes and pale cheeks that plainly told 
of insufficient food. He wore a suit of clothes 
evidently made for some one else. They were 
patched in places with cloth of different colors. 
His shoes were old, his hair cut square in the neck 
in the unpracticed manner that women sometimes 
cut boys' hair. It was a bitter day, yet he wore no 
overcoat, and his bare hands were red with the cold. 

" How old are you, Tommy? " 

"Nine year old come next April. I've learnt to 
read at home, and I can cipher a little." 

" Well, it is time for you to begin school. Why 
have you never come before? " 

The boy fumbled with a cap in his hands, and 
did not reply at once. It was a ragged cap, with 
frayed edges, and the original color of the fabric no 
man could tell. 

Presently he said: " I never went to school 'cause 
— 'cause — well, mother takes in washing an' she 
couldn't spare me. But sissy is big enough now to 
help, an' she minds the baby besides." 

It was not quite time for school to begin. All 
around the teacher and the new scholar stood the 
boys that belonged in the room. While he was 
making his confused explanation some of the boys 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 119 

laughed, and one of them called out, " Say, Tommy, 
where are your cuffs and collar?" And another 
said, "You must sleep in the ragbag at night, by 
the looks of your clothes!" Before the teacher 
could quiet them, another boy had volunteered the 
information that the father of the new boy was 
"old Si Brown, who is always as drunk as a fid- 
dler." 

The poor child looked round at his tormentors 
like a hunted thing. Then, before the teacher 
could detain him, with a suppressed cry of misery 
he ran out of the room, out of the building, down 
the street, and was seen no more. 

The teacher went to her duties with a troubled 
heart. All day long the child's pitiful face haunted 
her. At night it came to her dreams. She could 
not rid herself of the memory of it. After a little 
trouble, she found the place where he lived, and 
two of the W. C. T. U. women went to visit him. 

It was a dilapidated house in a street near the 
river. The family lived in the back part of the 
house, in a frame addition. The ladies climbed the 
outside stairs that led up to the room occupied by 
the Brown family. When they first entered, they 
could scarcely discern objects, the room was so filled 
with the steam of the soapsuds. There were two 
windows, but a tall brick building adjacent shut out 
the light. It w r as a gloomy day, too, with gray, 
lowering clouds that forbade even the memory of 
sunshine. 

A woman stood before a washtub. When they 



120 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

entered, she wiped her hands on her apron and 
came forward to meet them. 

Once she had been pretty. But the color and 
light had all gone out of her face, leaving only 
sharpened outlines and haggardnes3 of expression. 

She asked them to sit down, in a listless, uninter- 
ested manner; then, taking a chair herself, she 
said : — 

" Sissy, give me the baby." 

A little girl came forward from a dark corner of 
the room, carrying a baby, that she laid in its 
mother's laip — a lean and sickly looking baby with 
the same hollow eyes that little Tommy had. 

" Your baby doesn't look strong," said one of the 
ladies. 

" No, ma'am ; she ain't very well. I have to 
work hard and I expect it affects her;" and the 
woman coughed, as she held the child to her 
breast. 

This room was the place where this family ate, 
slept, and lived. There was no carpet on the floor ; 
an old table, three or four chairs, a broken stove, a 
bed in one corner ; in an opposite corner a trundle- 
bed — that was all. 

" Where is your little boy, Tommy ?" asked one 
of the visitors. 

" He is there in the trundle-bed," replied the 
mother. 

" Is he sick ?" 

" Yes'm, and the doctor thinks he ain't going to 
get well." At this the mother laid her head on the 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 121 

baby's face, while the tears ran down her thin and 
faded cheeks. 

" What is the matter with him?" 

" He was never very strong, and he's had to work 
too hard, carrying water and helping me lift the 
washtabs and things like that." 

"Is his father dead?" 

"No, he ain't dead. He used to be a good work- 
man and we had a comfortable home. Bat all he 
earns now — and that ain't much — goes for drink. 
If he'd only let me have what little I make over the 
washtub. But half the time he takes that away 
from me, and then the children go hungry." 

She took the child off her shoulder. It was 
asleep now, and she laid it across her lap. 

"Tommy had been crazy to go to school. I 
never could spare him till this winter. He thought 
if he could get a little education, he'd be able to 
help take care of Sissy and baby and me. ife knew 
he'd never be able to work hard. So I fixed up his 
clothes as well as I could, and last week he started. 
I was afraid the boys would laugh at him, but he 
thought he could stand it if they did. I stood in 
the door and watched him go. I can never forget 
how the little fellow looked," she continued, the 
tears streaming down her face. " His patched-up 
clothes, his old shoes, his ragged cap, his poor little 
anxious look. He turned around to see me as he 
left the yard, and said, ' Don't you worry, mother; 
I ain't going to mind what the boys say.' But he 
did mind. It wasn't an hour till he was back again. 



122 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

I believe the child's heart was just broke. I 
thought mine was broke years ago. If it was, it 
was broke over again that day. I can stand most 
anything myself, but oh, I can't bear to see my 
children suffer! *' Here she broke down in a fit of 
convulsive weeping. The little girl came up to her 
quietly and stole a thin little arm round her 
mother's neck. "Don't cry, mother," she whis- 
pered, " don't cry." 

The woman made an effort to check her tears, 
and wiped her eyes. As soon as she could speak 
with any degree of calmness, she continued: — 

" Poor little Tommy cried all clay; I couldn't 
comfort him. He said it wasn't any use trying to 
do anything. Folks would only laugh at him for 
being a drunkard's little boy. I tried to comfort 
him before my husband came home. I told him his 
father would be mad if he saw him crying. But it 
wasn't any use. Seemed like he couldn't stop. 
His father came and saw him. He wouldn't have 
done it if he hadn't been drinking. He ain't a bad 
man when he is sober. I hate to tell it, but he 
whipped Tommy. And the child fell and struck 
his head. I suppose he'd 'a' been sick, any way. 
But, oh, my poor little boy! My sick, suffering 
child!" she cried. " How can they let men sella 
thing that makes the innocent suffer so?" 

A little voice spoke from the bed. One of the 
ladies went to him. There he lay, poor little 
defenceless victim. He lived in a Christian land, in 
a country that takes great care to pass laws to pro- 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 123 

tect sheep and diligently legislates over its game. 
Would that the children were as precious as brutes 
and birds! 

His face was flushed, and the hollowed eyes were 
bright. There was a long purple mark on his tem- 
ple. He put one little wasted hand to cover it, 
while he said: — 

"Father wouldn't have done it if he hadn't been 
drinking." Then, in his queer, piping voice, weak 
with sickness, he half whispered: " Fm glad I'm 
going to die. Fm too weak ever to help mother, 
anyhow. Up in heaven the angels ain't going to 
call me a drunkard's child, and make fun of my 
clothes. And maybe if I'm right there where God 
is, I can keep reminding him of mother, and he'll 
make it easier for her." 

He turned his head feebly on his pillow, and then 
said, in a slower tone: "Some day — they ain't 
going — to let the saloons — keep open. But I'm 
afraid — poor father — will be dead — before then." 
Then he shut his eyes from weariness. 

The next morning the sun shone in on the dead 
face of little Tommy. 

He is only one of many. There are hundreds like 
him in tenement houses, slums and alleys in town 
and country. Poor little martyrs, whose tears fall 
almost unheeded; who are cold and hungry in this 
Christian land; whose hearts and bodies are bruised 
with unkindness! And yet "the liquor traffic is a 
legitimate business and must not be interfered 
with," so it is said. 



124 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

Over eighteen hundred years ago, it was also 
said: — 

" Whoso shall offend one of these little ones, it 
were better for him that a millstone were hanged 
about his neck, and that he were drowned in the 
depths of the sea." 

Common School Education". 



THE VOICE OF DESPAIK. 



BUT now the struggle is over, I can survey the 
field and measure the losses. I had position, 
high and holy. The demon tore from around me 
the robes of my sacred office, and sent me forth 
churchless and Godless — a very hissing and by-word 
among men. Afterward I had business, large and 
lucrative, and my voice in all large courts was heard 
pleading for justice, mercy, and right. But the 
dust gathered on my unopened books, and my foot- 
fall crossed the threshold of a drunkard's office. I 
had money ample for all necessities, but it took 
wings and went to feed the coffers of the devils 
which possessed me. I had a home adorned with 
all that wealth and the most exquisite taste could 
suggest. This devil crossed its threshold, and the 
light faded from its chambers; the fire went out on 
the holiest altars, and leading me through its por- 
tals, despair walked forth with her, and sorrow and 
anguish lingered within. I had children, beautiful, 
to me at least, as the dream of the morning, and 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 125 

they had so entwined themselves around their fath- 
er's heart, that no matter where it might wander, 
ever it came back to them on the bright wings of 
a father's undying Jove. His destroyer took their 
hands in his and led them away. I had a wife 
whose charms of mind and person were such that to 
see her was to remember, and to know her was to 
love. . . . 

For thirteen years we walked the rugged path of 
life together, rejoicing in its sunshine, and sorrow- 
ing in its shade. This infernal monster couldn't 
spare me even this. I had a mother, who for long, 
long years had not left her chair, a victim of suffer- 
ing and disease, and her choicest delight was in the 
reflection that the lessons which she had taught at 
her knee had taken root in the heart of her youngest 
son, and that he was useful to his fellows, and an 
honor to her who bore him. But the thunderbolt 
reached even there, and there it did its most cruel 
work. Other days may cure all but this. Ah! me; 
never a word of reproach from her lips; only a 
tender caress; only a shadow of a great and un- 
spoken grief gathering over the dear old face; only 
a trembling hand laid more lovingly on my head; 
only a closer clinging to the cross; only a more pite- 
ous appeal to heaven if her cup were not at last full. 
And while her boy raved in wild delirium two thou- 
sand miles away, the pitying angels pushed the 
golden gates ajar, and the mother of the drunkard 
entered into rest. 

And thus I stand, a clergyman without a cure; a 



126 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

barrister without a brief or business; a father with- 
out a child; a husband without a wife; a son with- 
out a parent; a man with scarcely a friend; a soul 
without a hope — all swallowed up in the maelstrom 
of drink. J. J. Talbot. 



COLD WATER. 



THE thirsty flowerets droop; the parching grass 
Doth crisp beneath the feet, and the wan trees 
Perish for lack of moisture. By the side 
Of the dried rills, the herds despairing stand, 
With tongues protruded. Summer's fiery heat, 
Exhaling, checks the thousand springs of life. 

Marked ye yon cloud glide forth on angel wing? 



Heard ye the herald drops, with gentle force, 
Stir the broad leaves? and the protracted rain, 
Waking the streams to run their tuneful way? 
Saw ye the flocks rejoice, and did ye fail 
To thank the God of fountains? 

See,— the hart 
Pants. for the water-brooks. The fervid sun 
Of Asia glitters on his leafy lair, 
As fearful of the lion's wrath, he hastes, 
With timid footsteps, through the whispering reeds, 
Quick leaping to the renovating stream; 
The copious draught his bounding veins inspires 
With joyous vigor. 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 127 

Patient o'er the sand, 
The burden-bearer of the desert clime, 
The camel, toileth. Faint with deadly thirst, 
His writhing neck of bitter anguish speaks. 
Lo ! an oasis, and a tree-girt well ! — 
And, moved by powerful instinct on he speeds, 
With agonizing haste, to drink, or die. 
On his swift courser, o'er the burning wild 
The Arab cometh. From his eager eye 
Flashes desire. Seeks he the sparkling wine, 
Giving its golden color to the cup? 
No ! to the gushing stream he flies, and deep 
Buries his scorching lip, and laves his brow, 
And blesses Allah. 

Christian pilgrim, come! 
Thy brother of the Koran's broken creed 
Shall teach thee wisdom, and with courteous hand, 
Nature, thy mother, holds the crystal cup, 
And bids thee pledge her in the element 
Of temperance and health. 

Drink and be whole, 
And purge the fever poison from thy veins, 
And pass, in purity and peace, to taste 
The river flowing from the throne of God. 

Mrs. Sigourkey. 



128 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

THE ORIGINAL LIQUOR LEAGUE. 



ONE day the bad spirits met together and re- 
solved that our human race were too happy, 
and a delegation of four internals were sent up to 
earth on an embassy of mischief. One spirit said: 
"I will take charge of the vineyards!" Another 
said: " I will look after the grain-fields! " Another 
said: "I will supervise the dairy!" Another said: 
"I will take charge of the music!" They landed 
in the great Sahara desert, clutched their skeleton 
fingers in a handshake of fidelity, kissed each other 
good-bye with lip of blue flame, and separated for 
their mission. 

The first spirit entered the vineyard one bright 
morning, and sat down on the twisted root of a 
grape-vine in sheer discouragement. He could not 
at first plan any harm for the vineyard. The clus- 
ters were so full, and purple, and luscious, and pure. 
The air was fairly bewitched with their sweetness; 
health seemed to breathe from every ripened bunch. 
But in wrath at so much loveliness, the fiend 
grasped a cluster in his right hand, and squeezed it 
with utter hate, and lo! his hand was red with the 
liquid, and began to smoke. Then the fiend laughed 
and said, as he looked at the crimson stream drip- 
ping from his hand: "That makes me think of the 
blood of broken hearts. I will strip the vineyard 
and squeeze out all the clusters, and let the juices 
stand till they rot, and will call the process ' fer- 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 129 

mentation.'" And a great vat was made, and 
men, seeing it, brought cups and pitchers, and 
dipped them in, and went off, drinking as they went 
till they dropped in long lines of death, so that when 
the fiend of the vineyards wanted to go back to his 
home in the pit, he trod on the bodies of the slain 
all the way, going down over a causeway of the 
dead. 

The fiend of the grain-field waded chin-deep 
through the barley and the rye. As he came in he 
found all the grain talking about bread, and pros- 
perous husbandmen, and thrifty homes. But the 
fiend thrust his long arms through the barley and 
rye, and pulled them up and flung them into the 
water, and kindled fires beneath, by a spark from 
his own heart, and there was a grinding, and a 
mashing and a stench. And men dipped their 
bottles into the fiery juice, and staggered, and 
blasphemed, and rioted, and fought, and mur- 
dered, till the fiend of the grain-field was so well 
pleased with their behavior, he changed his resi- 
dence from the pit to a whiskey-barrel; and there 
he sits by the doorway, at the bung-hole, laughing 
right merrily at the fact that out of so harmless a 
thing as barley and rye, he has made this world a 
suggestion of Pandemonium. 

The fiend of the dairy met the cows as they were 
coming up full-uddered from the pasture-field. As 
the maid milked, he said: "It will not take me 
long to spoil that mess. I will add to it some 
brandy, and sugar, and nutmeg, and stir them into 



130 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

a milk punch, and children will like it, and even 
temperance men will take it; and if I can do no 
more, I will make their heads ache, and hand them 
gradually over to the more vigorous fiends of the 
satanic delegation." And then he danced a break- 
down on the shelf of the dairy, till all the shining 
row of milk-pans quaked. 

The fiend of music entered a grog-shop and found 
the customers few. So he made a circuit of the 
city, and gathered up all the instruments of sweet 
sound, and after the night had fallen, he marshalled 
a band, and trombone blew, and cymbals clapped, 
and harp thrummed, and drum beat, and bugle 
called, and crowds thronged in and listened, and, 
with wine-cup in their right hand, began to whirl in 
a dance that grew wilder, and stronger, and rougher, 
till the room shook, and the glasses cracked, and 
the floor broke through, and the crowd dropped into 
hell. 

They had done their work so well, these fiends of 
vineyard, and grain-field, and dairy, and concert- 
saloon, that, on getting back, high carnival was 
held, Satan from his throne announcing the fact 
that there was no danger of the earth's redemption 
so long as the vineyards, and orchards, and grain- 
fields, and music paid such a large tax to the diabol- 
ical. Then all the satyrs, and spirits, and demons 
cried " Hear ! hear! "and, lifting their chalices of 
fire, drank " Long life to rumsellers! Prosperity to 
the gallows! Success to the liquor league." 

Rev. T. De Witt Talmage. 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 131 

RIGHT MAKES MIGHT. 



THOUGH you see no banded army, 
Though you hear no cannon's rattle, 
We are in a mighty contest, 
We are fighting a great battle. 
W r e are few, but we are right, 
And we wage the holy fight, 
Night and day, and day and night. 

If we do not fail or falter, 

If we do not sleep or slumber, 
W r e shall win in this great contest, 
Though the foe is twice our number. 
This the burden of our song — 
W r e are few, but we are strong, 
And right must triumph over wrong. 



THE BUSINESS SIDE OF PROHIBITION. 



TN getting evidence of improvement or deteriora- 
A tion in a city you must go to the working classes. 
Especially is this true of Atlanta, because this is the 
third city in the United States in the proportion of 
workers to population. 

Now here is a class of people representing in the 
workers of our number 47 per cent, of the entire 
population. Add the women and children who do 
not work, and we see this class represents 66 or 70 
per cent, of our population. If I have shown that 



132 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

this class is benefited in an unspeakable manner by 
the untried experiment of prohibition, is it not our 
duty to continue this experiment that the greatest 
good may come to the greatest number? 

There is just one thing further. What harm has 
it done? If it has done harm, let us see what. 
They say we were going to be ruined, that bats and 
owls would fly in and out of our idle factories, and 
the real estate men have the renting of nine out of 
ten houses that are rented. They testify without a 
break, absolutely without a break, that they have 
fewer houses on their lists than they have ever had 
since they have been in business. 

In the last two years there have been 687 citizens 
who have become home-owners, against 153 in the 
two years previous — citizens owing no man and 
owning no man as master, wearing the collar of no 
faction, free-born American citizens, not quibbling 
about personal liberty, but standing with wife and 
little ones, honest and independent, above penury 
and degradation. 

I assume to keep no man's conscience; I assume 
to judge for no man; I do not assume that I am 
better than any man, but that I am weaker. But I 
say this to you, I have a boy as dear to me as the 
ruddy drops that gather about this heart. I find 
my hopes already centering in his little body, and 
I look to him to-night to take to himself the work 
that, strive as I may, must fall unfinished at last 
from my hands. Now, I tell you, if I were to vote 
to recall bar-rooms to this city, when I know that it 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 133 

has prospered in their absence, and that boy should 
fall through their agency, I tell you — and this con- 
viction has come to me in the still watches of the 
night — I could not, wearing the crowning sorrow of 
his disgrace and looking into the eyes of her whose 
heart he had broken — I could not, if I had voted to 
recall these bar-rooms, find answer for my conscience 
or support for my remorse. I don't know how any 
other father feels, but that is the way I feel, if God 
permits me to utter the truth. 

The best reforms of this earth come through 
waste and storm and doubt and suspicion; the sun 
itself when it rises on each day, wastes the radiance 
of the moon, and blots the starlight from the skies, 
but only to unlock the earth from the clasp of night 
and plant the stars anew in the opening flowers. 
Behind that sun as behind this movement we may 
be sure there stands the Lord God Almighty, mas- 
ter and maker of this universe, from whose hand 
the spheres are rolled to their orbits, and whose 
voice has been the harmony of this world since the 
morning stars sang together. 

He^ry W. Grady. 



THINK BEFORE YOU DRINK. 



HE who thinks before he drinks 
Will nothing drink but water, 
He who drinks before he thinks 
Will drink what no one ought to. 



134 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

THE DISENTHRALLED. 



[Permissk>n of Houghton, Mifflin & Co.} 

HE had bowed down to drunkenness, 
An abject worshipper, 
The pulse of manhood's pride had grown 

Too faint and cold to stir; 
And he had given his spirit up 

Unto the evil thrall; 
And, bowing to the poisoned cup, 
He gloried in his fall. 

There came a change— the cloud rolled by 

And light fell on his brain, 
And like the passing of a dream 

That cometh not again, 
The shadow of his spirit fled; 

He saw the gulf before, 
He shuddered at the waste behind, 

And was a man once more. 

He shook the serpent folds away, 

That gathered round his heart, 
As shakes the wind-swept forest oak 

Its poison vine apart; 
He stood erect; returning pride 

Grew terrible within, 
And conscience sat in judgment on 

His most familiar sin. 

The light of intellect again 
Along his pathway shone, 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 135 

And reason like a monarch sat 

Upon its olden throne; 
The honored and the wise once more 

Within his presence came, 
And lingered oft on lovely lips 

His once forbidden name. 

There may be glory in the might 

That treadeth nations down — 
Wreaths for the crimson warrior, 

Pride for the kingly crown; 
But nobler is that triumph hour, 

The disenthralled shall find, 
When evil passion boweth down, 

Unto the Godlike mind! 

J. G. Whittier. 



THE QUESTION OF NATIONS. 



rpHE idea that alcohol is necessary to enable men 
-*■ to perform extra mental or physical work has 
so utterly come to grief, it is really not necessary 
that I should put it forward, even as a remnant of 
superstition against us; but it has been suggested, 
leaving the present ground of history altogether, 
giving up, in despair, all attempts to reply to those 
unanswerable modern proofs against the old fallacy, 
which Arctic explorers, men of great strength and 
physical skill, incessant minds, and the most labori- 
ous literary scholars so richly supply; it has been 
suggested, I repeat, that, in some inscrutable man- 



136 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

ner, alcoliol has been the feeding-mother of great 
nations, that it has sustained racial tenacities and 
vitalities, overcome mighty adversaries, and been, 
in short, both a herald and a conqueror on the side 
of civilization. For our part we, who dare to doubt 
this conclusion, want to know on what facts the 
conclusion is based. We are willing to learn, but 
we insist that those who preach must prove. Who 
can say what any great and mighty nation would 
have been to-day if wine had never been? By what 
evidence can the destinies of nations in favor of a 
good destiny be traced through wine or strong 
drink? We can see some facts in history in rela- 
tion to the effects of human acts plainly enough. 
We can see ; for instance, that Constantine most 
probably destroyed the Eoman empire by moving 
the seat of government from its old basis to a new 
city that should be marked by his name. But 
where is there any corresponding fact bearing on 
great events and making of nations, wine being the 
factor? Suppose we turn to some facts, such as 
they are, in history, and they point circumstantially 
all the other way. Nations the mightiest have risen 
while they were abstaining nations; have fallen 
when wine became their luxury. Herodotus gives 
us the record of all-powerful Cyrus receiving from 
a small Ethiopian prince a bow, with this message: 
" Tell Cyrus that when he can bend this bow, which 
is mine, or find a Persian to do it, he may come and 
conquer Macrobia." And the historian relates, with 
evident satisfaction, that these Macrobians, who were 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 137 

the finest of men, so that they stood a head above 
the Persians, and were a truly noble race, were dis- 
tinguished from the Persians in that they drank no 
fluid stronger than milk, while the Persians revelled 
in wine. There is yet another bit of evidence 
against a hypothesis of alcohol as the nursing- 
mother of great nations. Through all tribulations, 
through all vicissitudes, through all persecutions, 
what nation has maintained its vitality like the Jew- 
ish nation? Has alcohol been to this people a 
nursing-mother? Baron Haller, dealing with this 
topic in the last century, gave the secret of t^e 
cause of this vitality all in one word — Sobrietas. 
B. W. Richardson, M. D. 



THE DOWN GBADE. 



rpHE way to destruction is pointed and clear; 
-A It starts with a longing for cider and beer. 
It promises pleasure, enjoyment, and fun, 
Four hogsheads, full measure, to every tun. 

And as on the way you farther advance 
You go for French brandy that never saw France, 
Till you slide down the way of destruction with ease 
And call for whatever decoction you please. 

The chances are that if you walk in this way 
You'll see many things that are sinful and gay, 
And make the acquaintance, no doubt to your cost, 
Of many whose hopes of redemption are lost. 



138 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

Each step that is taken your heart will beguile, 
For " Wine is a mocker/' deceitful and vile; 
It promises pleasure and fulness of joy, 
And only has power to blight and destroy. 

Thomas E. Thompson. 



LEAVE THE LIQUOR ALONE. 



I'M anxious to tell you a bit of my mind, 
If it won't put you out of the way; 
For I feel very certain you'll each of you find 

There's wisdom in what I would say. 
We've maxims and morals enough and to spare, 

But I have got one of my own 
That helps me to prosper and laugh at dull care; 

It's " Leave the liquor alone." 
If you'd win success and escape distress, 

Leave the liquor alone. 
To avoid neglect and to win respect 

Leave the liquor alone. 

The brewer can ride in a coach and pair, 

The drinker must trudge on the road; 
One gets through the world with a jaunty air, 

The other bends under a load. 
The brewer gets all the beef, my lads, 

And the drinker picks the bone; 
If you'd have your share of good things, take care 

And leave the liquor alone. 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 139 

You'll enjoy good health, and you'll gain in wealth, 

If you leave the liquor alone. 
A man full of malt isn't worth his salt; 

Leave the liquor alone. 

A drinker is ready to own at last 

He played but a losing game; 
How glad would he be to recall the past 

And earn him a nobler name! 
Don't reach old age with this vain regret 

For a time that's past and gone; 
You may win a good prize in life's lottery yet 

If you'll leave the liquor alone. 
You find some day it's the safest way 

To leave the liquor alone. 
Eesolve like men not to touch again; 

Leave the liquor alone. 



THE LIPS THAT TOUCH LIQUOR SHALL 
NEVER TOUCH MINE. 



A LICE LEE stood awaiting her lover one night, 
-£*- Her cheeks flushed and glowing, her eyes full 

of light. 
She had placed a sweet rose 'mid her wild flowing 

hair; 
No flower of the forest e'er looked half so fair 
As she did that night, as she stood by the door 
Of the cot where she dwelt by the side of the moor. 



140 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

Her lover had promised to take her a walk, 

And she built all her hopes on a long, pleasant talk ; 

But the daylight was falling, and also, I ween, 

Her temper was fading, 'twas plain to be seen; 

For now she'd stand still, then a tune she would 

hum, 
And impatiently mutter, " I wish he would come! " 

" You may say what you like, 'tis not pleasant to 

wait 
And William has oft kept me waiting of late; 
I know where he stays, 'tis easy to tell, 
He spends many an hour at the sign of the Bell; 
I wish he would keep from such places away, 
His rakish companions do lead him astray. 

She heard a quick step, and her young heart beat 

fast 
As she said, " I am glad he is coming at last; " 
But it was only a neighbor who hastened to speak, 
And he marked the quick flush on the young maid- 
en's cheek 
And his aged eye twinkled with pleasure and glee, 
As he merrily said, " So you're waiting, I see. 

"Now don't at all think I'm intending to blame, 
For love ought ne'er be a subject of shame; 
But I tell you to warn you. I fancy, my lass, 
Young William is getting too fond of the glass! 
And, oh! if you wish for the love that endures, 
Say that the lips that touch liquor shall never touch 
yours." 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 141 

He went on his way, but the truth he'd impressed 
Took root and sank deep in the young maiden's 

breast, 
And strange things she scarce could account for 

before 
Now appeared quite plain, as sh-e pondered them o'er. 
She then said, with a look of deep sorrow and fright, 
" I really believe that the old man is right. 

" When William next comes I will soon let him know 
He must give up the liquor, or else he must go; 
'Twill be a good chance, no doubt, to prove 
If he is really sincere in his vows of deep love; 
He must give up at once and forever the wine, 
For the lips that touch liquor shall never touch 
mine." 

She heard a quick step coming over the moor, 
And a merry voice which she had oft heard before, 
And ere she could speak a strong arm held her fast, 
And a manly voice whispered, "I've come, love, at 

last. 
I'm sorry that I've kept you waiting like this, 
But I know you'll forgive me, then give me a kiss." 

But she shook her bright curls on her beautiful 

head, 
And she drew herself up while quite proudly she 

said, 
" Now, William, I'll prove if you really are true, 
For you say that you love me — I don't think you do; 



142 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

If really you love me yon must give up the wine, 
For the lips that touch liquor shall never touch 
mine." 

He looked quite amazed. " Why, Alice, 'tis clear 
You really are getting quite jealous, my dear." 
" In that you are right," she replied; " for, you see, 
You'll soon love the liquor far better than me. 
I'm jealous, I own, of the poisonous wine, 
For the lips that touch liquor shall never touch 
mine." 

He turned, then, quite angry, "Confound it!" he 

said, 
" What nonsense you've got in your dear little head; 
But I'll see if I can not remove it from hence." 
She said, "'Tis not nonsense, 'tis plain common- 
sense: 
And I mean what I say, and this you will find, 
I don't often change when I've made up my mind." 

He stood all irresolute, angry, perplexed: 
She never before saw him look half so vexed; 
But she said, " If he talks all his life I won't flinch; " 
And he talked, but he never could move her an inch. 
He then bitterly cried, with a look and a groan, 
" Alice, your heart is as hard as a stone." 

But though her heart beat in his favor quite loud, 
She still firmly kept to the vow she had vowed; 
And at last, without even a tear or a sigh, 
She said, "I am going, so, William, good-bye." 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 143 

"Nay, stay," he then said, "I'll choose one of the 

two — 
I'll give up the liquor in favor of you." 

Now, William had often great cause to rejoice 
For the hour he had made sweet Alice his choice; 
And he blessed through the whole of a long, useful 

life, 
The fate that had given him his dear little wife. 
And she, by her firmness, won to us that night 
One who in our cause is an ornament bright. 

Oh! that each fair girl in our abstinence band 
Would say: "I'll ne'er give my heart or my hand 
Unto one who I ever had reason to think 
Would taste one small drop of the vile, cursed 

drink;" 
But say, when you are wooed, " I'm a foe to the wine, 
And the lips that touch liquor shall never touch 

mine." 

Harriet A. Glazebrook. 



THE SALOON AND THE HOME. 



BREAK down the American home, and the fabric 
of free government goes down with it. There 
is no fountain of influence so pure as the Christian 
home. Corrupt that, and every artery of national life 
will be tainted. There is no teacher of public morals 
so potential as the Christian mother. Weaken her 



144 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

influence, and by so much you imperil the integrity 
of the nation. There is no school of political moral- 
ity compared to the Christian home. Lure the pu- 
pils from that school-room, and you are recruiting 
the ranks of the enemy. For its own safety this 
Government must build around its homes all pos- 
sible safeguards, and by every means in its power 
protect these nurseries of her future statesmen and 
rulers. 

What shall we do with this liquor evil? To that 
question the best thought of the commonwealth is 
turning to-day, and with that problem the clearest 
brain of the nation is grappling. We can not push 
that question aside if we would. And surely no ear- 
nest man would if he could. What, then, is the 
duty of the hour? Do you say, Yes, we will regu- 
late this business. We will take it under control 
and hold it within proper bounds by license. Then, 
we say, we are not seeking that kind of alliance. 
We invoke the aid of the law against this traffic as a 
criminal and a law-breaker, an enemy and a de- 
stroyer, and your proposition to license does not 
meet that demand. Licensing does not diminish 
the results of intemperance, and that is the end we 
are seeking. Licensing legalizes, and makes respec- 
table in the eye of the law, a business that is illegal 
and disreputable. Consenting to license, makes the 
consentor measurably responsible for the traffic and 
its horrible fruits. 

Lord Chesterfield said in the English House of 
Lords, more than one hundred years ago: 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 145 

<c Luxury, my lords, is to be taxed, but vice pro- 
hibited, let the difficulty in the law be what it will. 
Would you lay a tax on a breach of the Ten Com- 
mandments? Would not such a tax be wicked and 
scandalous? Would it not imply an indulgence to 
all those who could pay the tax? Vice, my lords, is 
not properly to be taxed, but to be suppressed. 
Luxury, or that which is only pernicious by excess, 
though not strictly unlawful, may be made more 
difficult. But the use of those things which are 
simply hurtful in their own nature, and in every 
degree, is to be prohibited. None, my lords, ever 
heard, in any nation, of a tax upon adultery, be- 
cause a tax implies a license granted for the use of 
that which is taxed, to all who are willing to pay for 
it. Drunkenness is universally and in all circum- 
stances an evil, and, therefore, ought not to be 
taxed, but prohibited." 

That was the sentiment of an English statesman 
uttered one hundred years ago, and we repeat it to- 
day. We ask that this iniquity shall be suppressed 
by law. It is not only the right, but the duty of 
the Government to interdict the manufacture and 
sale of this great crime-producer, for the protection 
of its own life, and to protect the life and property 
of its subjects. 

Rev. E. K. Young. 



146 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

A NATIONAL PROHIBITION PARTY OUR 
ONLY DELIVERER. 



rriHE destiny of man is the concern of the world. 
-A- God in creation made him the great central 
idea, and gracious Providence operates the world to- 
day for man's good. 

What can we do for man? What does he need? 
Where is the great disturber of his peace, and in 
what form may we find him? If the philanthropy 
of the age may testify; if the Christianity of the 
world may answer; if criminal courts and insane 
asylums may bear record, it is the demon of drink 
as embodied in the liquor traffic in our own fair 
land. The manufacture and sale of intoxicating 
drink is the great overshadowing curse of modern 
civilization. 

It is not only a crime in itself, but a crime pro- 
ducing crime, a crime multiplying crime. The 
source whence issues the germ of every crime known 
to the courts; the source whence comes the inspira- 
tion of any deed that may chance suggest itself to 
the whiskjr-crazed brain of the drunken debauchee. 
It is to-day rearing amid the happy homes of' this 
God-favored people a class of beings as low, and as 
vile, and as utterly sunken in the scale of being as 
are the Hottentots in the jungles of Africa. 

Its ravages are everywhere, its withering blight 
on every good thing. It is of all business the most 
infernal; and the devils in darkness never devised 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 147 

an agency more destructive of man's well-being. 
In fact the prohibition of the liquor traffic would 
cure most of the. evils that afflict our people. Ke- 
form here means reform elsewhere; reform here 
means the uplifting and the upbuilding of the 
masses of our people, and a general reform of the 
customs of the nation. "This is a consummation 
devoutly to be wished," especially in our corrupted 
politics, where more than elsewhere we see the 
power exerted by the liquor party through its 
alarming control of the votes of the country. In 
this field it is master of the situation and completely 
dominates both the Democratic and Eepublican 
parties. These parties seek office and the liquor 
party has power to confer office. The liquor party 
wants liquor legislation, and the office-holding poli- 
tician can control legislation, hence mutual benefit 
suggests a political alliance, and that alliance exists 
and has for years, as the champions of temper- 
ance reform long ago learned, to their disappoint- 
ment and chagrin. This alliance is the combination 
prohibition has to meet. It is not a foe to be trifled 
with. It is unscrupulous and its resources are vast. 

But prohibition based on principle, broad and 
deep, grounded on the divine idea of right, is des- 
tined to vanquish such a foe, sooner or later. 

We will never stay the reign of drunkenness but 
by reign of law. We will never command the law 
until we can command votes through a party of 
Prohibitionists strong enough to sever all connection 
with the old parties, and boldly confront these at 



148 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

the ballot-box with a party organization committed 
to the idea of prohibition of the manufacture and 
sale of intoxicating liquors in the United States. 

National prohibition is the demand, nothing less 
will satisfy. Anything less is only driving in the 
outer picket posts of the enemy, while the strong- 
hold is untouched, the citadel secure. Any victory 
outside the field of politics is, at best, but tem- 
porary. We must reach a grand political party in 
the nation — a party whose power can demand. This 
power to demand gives the liquor party liquor leg- 
islation. 

The Democratic press says Prohibitionists and 
Democrats can't live in the same political party 
together. The Republican press says that Prohi- 
bitionists must be prohibited in the Republican 
party. 

The Liquor party says our only salvation from the 
Prohibition party is to give our solid vote for one of 
the old political parties; our business is safe in the 
hands of either the Democrats or Republicans. 
Now, my friends, how can any Prohibitionist with 
such statements confronting him, hope for any aid 
to the Prohibition cause, from either of the old 
party organizations? 

Rev. Dr. J. C. Ray. 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 149 

ARREST ALCOHOL AND LIBERATE MAN. 



WHAT has given the liquor traffic the power to 
get into the heart of the Christian republic, 
and rear its black death-flag by the side of our 
national flag, and to cut off in the United States 
alone one soul every eight minutes, and send it into 
eternity, under circumstances from which we are 
led to believe that they are excluded forever from 
Heaven, and from the glory of God? 

What we license, we protect; what we license, we 
wrap the flag of the country around and make it a 
legitimate branch of business, and in the legalized 
aspect of the traffic lies its power. What does God's 
Word say about it? What does it say about licensed 
wrong? If Isaiah had seen the license system of 
the United States as it is now, he could not have 
better expressed it than he has, " Woe unto him 
that justifieth the wicked for a reward." The 
license system takes the money from these men 
who are dealing out liquid death for a government 
revenue, and thus makes it a legitimate branch of 
business, and God says, "Woe." I find every 
phrase of the subject of this work in the Bible. 
And I believe that God has wedded the Gospel and 
the temperance cause, and "what God hath joined 
together let no man put asunder." I find that the 
first prohibitory liquor-law ever passed was passed 
up in the Congress of Heaven, and it was not sub- 
mitted to the people, it never had to be remodeled, 



150 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

and it never will be repealed, and then I found the 
awful iniquity of taking a revenue from the liquor 
traffic and patting it in the till of the government. 
" Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood and 
establisheth a city with iniquity/" 

Tax-payer, do you wonder why your taxes are so 
heavy? Go to the collector and ask him and he 
will tell you, "Don't you know r we have had to 
increase the police force and put a wing on the 
county jail and enlarge the State's prison, and that 
we are about to build a new lunatic asylum? Seven- 
tenths of the lunacy of this country and England is 
the result of intemperance. The story of the good 
old Irish woman is a good lesson for us to learn. 
Her husband was frequently before the police court 
for committing offenses while under the influence of 
liquor, and she was in the habit of going before the 
magistrate who was to try him and begging him off, 
and this was her principal plea, that it was not 
Patrick that did it, but it was the whisky that was 
in him. "For," she said, " Patrick when sober was 
always a good man/' But this time it was a more 
heinous crime he was up for, but she went before 
the judge and repeated the same thing over to him; 
but the judge would not hear of it, and he said to 
her, " It won't do any good to keep bothering us by 
repeating this over and over;" and finally she said 
to him, "I think it would be a good deal more 
sensible for yourself and the jury, if you would put 
the whisky in the penitentiary and let Patrick go to 
work." 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 151 



PROHIBITION THE TRUE ANTI-POVERTY 
PARTY. 



PROHIBITION is a grand and glorious fact. A 
protection to the home, a safeguard to the fam- 
ily, the surety of the State. It is an economic, polit- 
ical and social fact, the glory of the present and 
the hope of the future. 

In Maine, Kansas and Iowa, it has made liquor- 
selling a disgrace. It has greatly modified the drink- 
ing habits of young men. It has greatly reduced 
the number of saloons. It has shut up the distil- 
leries and breweries. It has largely reduced the 
amount of drunkenness. It has virtually relieved 
the community of tramps and vagrants. It has in- 
creased the demand for labor. It has greatly re- 
duced the taxes. It has added largely to the value 
of all kinds of property. It has nearly emptied the 
jails, prisons, and poorhouses. 

It has greatly reduced the amount of sickness. 
It has greatly reduced the number of railroad, 
steamboat, and other accidents. It has elevated the 
moral character of the people. It has largely di- 
minished litigation. It has contributed to the 
attendance at churches. It has increased the at- 
tendance at the schools. 

It has greatly increased savings-bank deposits and 
banking capital. It has reduced the criminal cases 
before the court over 50 per cent, and crime of all 
kinds, including murders and violence, have dimin- 
ished more than 75 per cent. It has added greatly 



152 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

to the volume of trade, including the demand for 
wearing apparel, pianos, sewing-machines, carpets, 
furniture, etc., etc., also increasing railroad traffic. 
In fact, all branches of business have had a greatly 
increased prosperity, and the people have better se- 
curity for their lives, homes and property. 

The above positively, clearly and unanswerably 
prove that when prohibition of the liquor traffic be- 
comes general in both State and Nation, drunken- 
ness, poverty, and crime will be almost unknown in 
the community, and the promised glorious good 
time will have come for the country. May God 
speed the day, and each Christian and patriotic citi- 
zen demonstrate that he realizes his personal respon- 
sibility for its consummation, by using his vote and 
his political opportunities when and where the liq- 
uor traffic can be crushed out by prohibition. 

In the face of all these wonderful facts are there 
any who still insist that prohibition is impractica- 
ble and visionary, the pet theory of cranks only? 

W. Jennings Demorest. 



BOYS— AND THE BOTTLE. 



"VTOTHING from the pen of Dickens or Thacke- 
-^ ray goes nearer to the fount of tears than many 
a scene in child-life which is occurring every day. 
Not long ago I came upon a staggering father who 
was being led home by his own little boy. When 
the helpless sot reeled over and was likely to fall, the 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 153 

lad dexterously steadied him up again, as if he had 
acquired the knack of it from a long experience. 
The expression of shame and grief on the poor 
child's face haunted me for hours. I shuddered to 
think that the accursed appetite might descend as 
an hereditary bane, and be reproduced in that child 
in future years. One of the most hopeless cases of 
drunkenness I ever knew was the case of a church- 
member whose father and grandfather were con- 
firmed topers. That the lust for strong drink is 
hereditary has been often proved; but what father 
has a right to bequeath such a legacy of damnation 
to his offspring? 

A few days ago an interesting lad called at my 
door with the request from his mother for me to 
visit her. "What is the matter, my lad?" His 
countenance clouded over as he said tearfully — "It's 
about papa." The old, old story. I knew it too 
well. "Papa" had broken loose again, and the 
seven evil spirits which had been cast out, had come 
back again, and the last state of the man became 
worse than before. Such visits are among the sad- 
dest which a pastor can ever be called to make; to 
me — after my long observation of the clutch which 
drunkenness fastens on its victim — they are among 
the most desperate. There is a bare possibility that 
the father may be saved; but what an example to 
his boy! 

A friend gave me lately the experience of a skill- 
ful professional man in about the following words: 
" My early practice," said the doctor, " was success- 



154 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

ful, and I soon attained an enviable position. I 
married a lovely girl; two children were born to us, 
and my domestic happiness was complete. But I 
was invited often to social parties where wine was 
freely circulated, and I soon became a slave to its 
power. Before I was aware of it I was a drunkard. 
My noble wife never forsook me, never taunted me 
with a bitter word, never ceased to pray for my refor- 
mation. We became wretchedly poor, so that my 
family were pinched for daily bread. 

" One beautiful Sabbath my wife went to church, 
and left me lying on a lounge, sleeping off my pre- 
vious night's debauch. I was aroused by hearing 
something fall heavily on the floor. I opened my 
eyes and saw my little boy of six years old, tumbling 
upon the carpet. His older brother said to him — 
' Now get up and fall again. That's the way papa 
does; let's play we are drank!' I watched the 
child as he personated my beastly movements in a 
way that would have done credit to an actor! I arose 
and left the house, groaning in agony and remorse. 
I walked off miles into the country — thinking over 
my abominable sin and the example I was setting 
before my children. I solemnly resolved that with 
God's help I would quit my cups, and I did. No 
lecture I ever heard from Mr. Gough moved my soul 
like the spectacle of my own sweet boys 'playing 
drunk as papa does.' I never pass a day without 
thanking my God for giving me a praying wife, and 
bestowing grace sufficient to conquer my detestable 
sin of the bottle. Madam, if you have a son, keep 






FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 155 

him, if you can, from ever touching a glass of 
wine." 

It is the ready excuse of many a young lad for 
taking a glass of champagne — "We always have it 
at home." The decanter at home kindles the appe- 
tite which soon seeks the drinking-saloon. The 
thoughtless or reckless parent gives the fatal push 
which sends the boy to destruction. 

Long labor in the temperance reform has con- 
vinced me that the most effectual place to promote 
it is at home. There is the spot where the mischief 
too often is done. There is the spot to enact a 
"prohibitory law." Let it be written upon the 
walls of every house — Wherever there is a boy, there 
should never be a bottle. 

Key. T. L. Cutler, D. D. 



THE DEMERITS OF HIGH LICENSE. 



HIGH license puts no restriction upon the buyer. 
He can get his liquor, if he wishes it, just as 
copiously as before. One saloon will supply the crav- 
ing of 500 — or 5,000 for that matter — as well as 
many. The evils of intemperance are not, therefore, 
necessarily reduced by restricting the number of the 
saloons. Their abolition rather than their reduction 
is what we need and ought to seek. 

License, high or low, takes away what ought to be 
an important moral restriction from the seller. It 
removes from him the condemnation of the com- 



156 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

munity, and justifies him. It makes his acts legal. 
His moral sense, easily blinded by the enormous 
profits of his trade, is thus paralyzed. He becomes 
thus what we find him to be, obdurate, rapacious, 
an evil man and seducer, who waxes worse and worse. 
I do not wish to condemn him or any man, but I 
do not believe there is any trade so demoralizing to 
the trader, any class of sales which does the seller 
so much moral mischief, as that in intoxicating 
drinks. And to this damage the community con- 
tributes by licensing his trade. 

The moral tone of the community is lowered by 
licensing the liquor traffic. Whether it is right or 
wrong per se to buy or sell or drink intoxicating 
liquors, is a question I do not care to argue. This 
question loses its interest to me in the face of the 
appalling facts with which the liquor traffic con- 
fronts us. There is no single channel through 
which such depths of misery flow over the human 
race as through this. No ravages of disease, no 
devastations of nature, no kinds of vice or crime, 
work such woe as this. Such a statement no in- 
telligent person will be likely to doubt, and no 
honest man will deny. N"ow, to license the liquor 
traffic on the view that the enormity of this evil can 
be regulated — impossible as experience has thus far 
shown this to be — to sanction the opening of these 
lood-gates on the pretense that to keep them shut 
is to infringe upon the liberty which a wise govern- 
ment should ever guard, is not only, as it seems to 
me, the enslavement of the multitude for the free- 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 157 

dom of the few — an attempt whose result is likely 
to be the bondage of all — but it makes the com- 
munity itself a party to wrong doing. This cannot 
be done without lowering its own moral tone. 

The revenue from license falls heaviest where the 
burden ought to be the least. The cost of the 
license, while it may add to the price of the liquor 
sold, does not, as far as I can learn, diminish the 
amount of liquor bought and consumed. Practi- 
cally, the cost of liquor within the limits which any 
license is likely to put, seems to have little to do with 
the consumption. An intemperate man is not likely 
to drink more because it is cheap, or less because it 
is dear. . The difference between three cents a glass 
and four, makes no appreciable difference with him 
But the family of the drunkard! Alas! alas! the 
great revenues for high license, the enormous taxes 
on intoxicating drinks, are wrung from the wretched- 
ness of worse than widowed wives, and worse than 
orphaned children! 

President Seelye. 



THE DEE AM OF THE EEVELLEE. 



AROUND the board the guests were met, the 
lights above them gleaming, 
And in their cups, replenished oft, the ruddy wine 

was streaming; 
Their cheeks were flushed, their eyes were bright, 
their hearts with pleasure bounded. 



158 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

The song was sung, the toast was given, and loud 
the revel sounded. 

I drained my bumper with the rest, and cried, 
" Away with sorrow; 

Let me be happy for to-day, and care not for to- 
morrow! " 

But as I spoke my sight grew dim, and slumber 
deep came o'er me, 

And 'mid the whirl of mingling tongues, this vision 
passed before me: 

Methought I saw a demon rise; he held a mighty 

beaker, 
Whose burnished sides ran daily o'er with floods of 

burning liquor; 
Around him pressed a clam'rous crowd, to taste this 

liquor greedy, 
But chiefly came the poor and sad, the suffering and 

the needy; 
All those oppressed by grief and debt, the dissolute 

and lazy, 
Blear-eyed old men, and reckless youths, and palsied 

women crazy. 
" Give, give!" they cry. " Give, give us drink to 

drown all thoughts of sorrow, 
If we are happy for to-day, we care not for to- 
morrow! " 

The first drop warms their shivering skins, and 

drives away their sadness; 
The second lights their sunken eyes, and fills their 

souls with gladness; 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 159 

The third drop makes them shout and roar, and 

play each furious antic; 
The fourth drop boils their very blood, and the 

fifth drop drives them frantic. 
" Drink! " says the demon, "drink your fill! 

Drink of these waters mellow, 
They'll make your bright eyes blear and dull, and 

turn you white skins vellow; 
They'll fill your home with care and grief, and 

clothe your back with tatters; 
They'll fill your heart with evil thoughts — but never 

mind — what matters? 

" Though virtue sink, and reasoning fail, and social 

ties dissever, 
Fll be your friend in hour of need, and find you 

homes forever; 
For I have built three mansions high, three strong 

and goodly houses — 
A workhouse for the jolly soul who all his life 

carouses; 
A hospital to lodge the sot, oppressed by pain and 

anguish; 
A prison full of dungeons deep, where hopeless 

felons languish. 
So drain the cup and drain again, and drown all 

thought of sorrow, 
Be happy if you can to-day, and never mind to- 
morrow! w 

But well he knows, this demon old, how vain is all 
his preaching; 



160 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

The ragged crew that round him flock are heedless 

of his teaching; 
Even as they hear his fearful words, they cry with 

shouts of laughter, 
"Out on the fool! who mars to-day with thoughts 

of an hereafter! 
We care not for thy houses three, we live but for 

the present, 
And merry will we make it yet, and quaff our 

bumpers pleasant! " 
Loud laughs the fiend to hear them speak, and lifts 

his brimming beaker, 
"Body and soul are mine!" quoth he; "HI have 

them both for liquor! " 

Charles Mackay. 



PROHIBITION A BLESSING TO THE POOR. 



WHEN you go to get the effect of a new move- 
ment for good or evil, where do you go? Not 
to the rich and idle, because you may swell or di- 
minish their income and yet not change their habits; 
you simply diminish the hidden surplus. Nor to 
the middle class, because when you diminish their 
income they simply pinch themselves and pinch so 
quietly that their neighbors do not know it, or swell 
their incomes and they loosen out a little and pass 
something up to surplus. You cannot tell it there; 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 161 

but go to the poorer classes — the men who labor for 
their daily bread, and whose wages barely suffice to 
give it to them; and there you find the first signs of 
a good or evil movement. It is at once the truth 
and reproach of our civilization, that starvation fol- 
lows so close on labor that an evil movement is de- 
tected in the hollow cheeks of little children and 
the haggard faces of women before it is made mani- 
fest to the higher classes. 

Mr. Geo. Adair rents houses to 1,300 tenants. 
He states that he has issued in the last year one dis- 
tress warrant where he issued twenty, two years ago. 

I claim to be an intelligent man with some cour- 
age of conviction; but I pledge you my word, if that 
one fact were established to my satisfaction, I 
would vote for this thing if I never heard another 
word on this subject. Have you thought what that 
means — a distress warrant? It means eviction; it 
means the very thing that is to-day kindling the 
heart of this world for poor Ireland. It means 
eviction! It means turning woman and her little 
children out of the home that covers them, and to 
which they are entitled, Mr. Tally, who rents 600 
or 800 houses, says: "I used to issue two or three 
distress warrants — four or five — a month. I have 
not issued a single one in eighteen months." Now, 
both of them are Prohibitionists. Harry Krouse 
was an anti-Prohibitionist. He said: "My distress 
warrants averaged thirty-six to the year, and I have 
not issued one in twelve months." 

I went down to Mr. Scott, who did not vote for 



162 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

prohibition, and asked him. He said: " I have is- 
sued as many as twenty-five distress warrants in a 
month, and I have issued six in the last eighteen 
months, and five were to get people out of houses 
because they were obnoxious to their neighbors. I 
have issued one single distress warrant for failure to 
pay rent." 

Is there any possible answer to that? Is there any 
industrial, any social, any economic revolution that 
has been worked since the world began that would 
account for the diminution in this most vicious and 
intolerable of legal enactments? Have you thought 
about what a distress warrant is? 

Have you ever thought about a woman being 
turned out of her house — the little cottage that cov- 
ers her and her children? Can you picture — you 
who live in comfortable homes filled with light and 
warmth and books and joy — can you think of these 
people — human beings, our brothers and sisters — the 
poor mother, brave, though her heart is breaking, 
huddling her little children about her — and the 
father, weak but loving, and loving all the deeper 
because he knows his weakness has brought them to 
this want and degradation — and little children, those 
of whom our Saviour said: " Suffer them to come 
unto me and forbid them not," there asking, 
" Mamma, where will we sleep to-night?" — can you 
picture that and then their taking themselves up 
and the woman putting her hand with undying love 
and faith in the hand of the man she swore to fol- 
low through good and evil report, and marching up 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 163 

and down the street — this pitiable procession — 
through the unthinking streets, by laughing chil- 
dren and shining windows, looking for a hole where^ 
like the foxes, they may hide their poor heads? 

My friends, they talk to you about personal lib- 
erty, that a man should have the right to go into a 
grog-shop and see this pitiable procession — now 
stopped — parading up and down our streets again. 
They talk to you about the shades of Washington, 
Monroe and Jefferson. I would not give one happy, 
rosy little woman, uplifted from that degradation- 
happy again in her home, with the cricket chirping 
on her hearthstone and her children about her knee, 
her husband redeemed from drink at her side — I 
would not give one of them for all the shades of all 
the men that ever contended since Catiline con- 
spired and Ggesar fought! 

Henry W. Grady. 



COULD I HAVE BORNE IT? 



COULD I have borne it? I often think, 
If one of my idols had bowed to drink, 
If one of my kings had laid his crown 
At the feet of the mighty monster down; 
If one of my darlings had sold his soul 
For the pottage mess in a drunkard's bowl. 



164 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

I thank Thee, clear Father, I do not know, 
I thank Thee Thou hast not tried me so. 

Could I have borne it? to see the light 

Of the demon flash from the blue eyes bright, 

Telling that reason and will had flown, 

And wine and wildness sat on their throne. 

While the sweet, pure look had gone from the face, 

And base brutality sat in its place. 

I thank Thee, dear Father, I do not know, 

I thank Thee Thou hast not tried me so. 

Could I have borne it? and live long years 
With sorrow for meat, and drink of tears, 
While the heart was dying of hunger and pain, 
As it loved and longed and hoped in vain. 
Oh! the dead that live on this bright glad day, 
While the sunshine sweet o'er graves doth play. 
I thank Thee, dear Father, I do not know, 
I thank Thee Thou hast not tried me so. 

If the plants I have loved, my own dear boys, 
My care and my pride, my dearest joys, 
If on them had fallen this dew of death, 
And they never had wakened at morning's breath, 
Would the spring for me have brought its flowers, 
Or the roses have bloomed hi summer bowers? 
I thank Thee, dear Father, I do not know, 
I thank Thee Thou hast not tried me so. 

How many must bear it; the very air 
Is full of the smoke of dwellings fair, 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS. 165 

Aud the sound of sighing on every breeze, 
While thousands are planting their willow-trees. 
If the fire that lives in the fruit of the vine 
Had scorched and blackened this home of mine, 
How I could have borne it I do not know, 
I thank Thee Thou hast not tried me so. 

How many must bear it, the mighty woe 
That is making graves o'er the hillsides grow, 
That is tying the crape folds on cottage door, 
And stilling the music on palace floor, 
That is toppling the tallest towers down 
Where the hands the hopes of men doth crown. 
If it had come and called for my dead 
And laid them to sleep in a hopeless bed. 

Oh! it is better to praise than pray, 

To be thankful than weep on this bright, glad day. 

Help me to remember those who bear 

An aching heart under garments fair; 

Help me remember the tempted and tried; 

Ever, good angels, be by their side. 

Help me remember those who know, 

And thank Thee Thou hast not tried me so. 

May E. DusTitf. 



166 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

PROHIBITION THE ONLY SAFEGUARD FOR 
YOUTH. 



Y\ T E mourn, as philanthropists and Christians, 
' " over the frightful perversion of so many young 
men, especially clerks and apprentices, in our larger 
cities; and we labor to save them through the 
church, the Sunday-school, and the Young Men's 
Christian Association. And all the while we are 
licensing a score of rum-shops along all the streets 
leading to every one of these fountains of life. On 
the South African plains vast herds of the hartbeest, 
the gemsbock, and other great antelopes pasture. 
They feed on the plains in the morning, and, when 
parched with the burning thirst of noon, they 
charge frantically, in rushing thousands, for the 
banks of the nearest river. But on their way a 
doom more terrible than thirst awaits them. Every 
devourer of the 'forest lurks for their coming. As 
they enter the jungle skirting the river, the fero- 
cious tiger springs upon them. The lion, with his 
awful roar, dashes down among them from the shady 
rock. The spotted leopard bathes his jaws in their 
blood, and the great boa shoots his crushing coils 
from the overhanging tree, and enfolds them in his 
deadly embrace. Thus they perish every year by 
thousands, and their hungry foes riot and fatten on 
their blood. How frightfully true is all this, as a 
picture of the perils that surround the troops and 
hundreds of our young men and women in our 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 167 

cities. And the cruelest and direst devourer of all, 
the lord and leader of all the blood-lapping train, is 
the licensed rum-shop. It is our sacred duty to 
warn and admonish these unwary souls, to save and 
rescue all we can from destruction, and to bind up 
and heal the wounded and the torn. But all this, 
alone, will be of little avail. It is, indeed, salvation 
by retail; but what we want is salvation by whole- 
sale! The devil devours by wholesale. Why, in- 
deed, should we not save in the same way? We 
want to clear up that jungle! We want a grand 
hunt along that river! We want the magazine rifle 
and the explosive bullet to do their unerring work 
upon that army of bloody devourers! We want a 
wide and safe path opened for the innocent and 
panting herd to approach the waters of life! And 
this is just what we want in the temperance cause. 
We want the rum-shop driven from our streets. We 
want the rum demon, with all his grisly, impish 
crew, driven from our land forever. We want the 
law on the side of the victim, not against him. We 
w r ant the jaw-teeth of the oppressor broken. We 
want the wide and safe highway of total prohibi- 
tion cast up, that the " ransomed of the Lord/' the 
souls for whom Christ died, may be first sobered 
and then converted, and so "return and come to 
Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their 
heads!" We want "the powers that be " to be in 
truth " ordained by God " and not by the devil. 
Geo. Lansing Taylor, D. D. 



168 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

NATIONAL PKOHIBITION. 



YTO party has ever risen into power so rapidly as 
■^ the Prohibition party is now rising. The 
Anti-Slavery party came out from under the moun- 
tain of scorn and contempt to take the Presidential 
chair and both Houses of Congress; but the Prohi- 
bition party, if you will watch the statistics, is com- 
ing with four times the celerity. American slavery 
was a pet lamb as compared with this red dragon. 
All the families which have been robbed of fathers, 
brothers and sons by the rum traffic; and all the 
States of the Union that have been despoiled of 
their mightiest men; all the churches of Jesus Christ 
which find the chief obstacle to the advancement of 
religion in the appetite for strong drink; and all 
the intelligence, and all the patriotism, and all the 
enthusiasm of the land will yet pack itself into an 
avalanche that will come crushing down upon this, 
the worst evil that ever afflicted a nation. 1 give 
fair notice to all politicians in America of what is 
coming. Better lead off than follow in afterward as 
stragglers. Many of the strongest men in both po- 
litical parties, North and South, see the rising tide 
of this reformation, and they are preparing to fight 
the red dragon. There may be many defeats before 
we get the final victory, but victory will come as 
surely as there is a God in heaven, for this na- 
tion was not intended for one great drunkery. 

Oh! what a country this would be with no dram- 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 169 

shops! Then no poor-houses, no penitentiaries, 
fewer broken hearts and fewer disconsolate homes. 
No woman brought up in luxury, afterward married 
to a man who sets her, with her shriveled arm and 
hollow eye and pallid cheek and consuming lung, 
to fight back the wolf that thrusts its nostrils 
through the broken window-pane, snuffing for the 
blood of her helpless babe. Let the contention be- 
tween the great temperance societies of America 
cease, and the 70,000 men belonging to the temper- 
ance societies of the State of New York join hands 
with the hundreds of thousands of temperance men 
in other States, and the millions of men who belong 
to no temperance society, but who are anxious for 
the sobriety and the disenthrallment of this country, 
and the work will be done, and done in less time 
than I tell you. 

First of all, we want an amendment to the Con- 
stitution of the United States ratified by three- 
fourths of the States — an amendment prohibiting 
the manufacture and the sale of alcoholic liquors in 
all the States and Territories, except for medicinal, 
artistic, mechanical, and scientific purposes, and a 
prohibition of the importation of foreign alcoholic 
liquors except for the same purposes. 

The mere prohibition of the manufacture and the 
sale of intoxicating liquors in a State, perhaps, may 
only drive that intoxication and that alcoholic liq- 
uor into another State; but let us have national 
prohibition, and then one-half the iniquity tumbles 
off into the Atlantic Ocean and the other half of the 



170 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

iniquity tumbles off into the Pacific Ocean — drowned 
in two oceans of cold water. 

We want a national movement, so that the 
stronger States in the matter can help the weaker 
States, and so that the country districts can help 
the dissipated cities. We want a national move- 
ment. 

Good citizens of America, I do not know how vou 
feel, but I confess that I am tired of paying taxes to 
fix up the work of these infernal grog-shops that 
are tossing tens of thousands of people into crime 
and suffering. Out with them from Brooklyn! Out 
with them from the United States! I now proclaim 
war for the rest of my life against that abomination. 
State prohibition. National prohibition. 

The work can be done, and it will be done; but it 
will not be done until the whole nation wakes up. 
State prohibition will not accomplish it. It must 
be national prohibition. You say, "Who would 
join such a party? " I will tell you. In the first 
place, hundreds of thousands of drunkards who, 
unable to endure the temptation, wish that these 
allurements were taken out of their sight. These 
poor tempted men cannot run the gauntlet of the 
bar-rooms and the wine-cellars. From morning 
until night they cannot get out of the way of these 
fascinations which are before them, behind them, on 
either side of them, an all-encircling fire of demoniac 
bombardment. Give these men a chance, and make 
it possible for them to walk the whole length of Ful- 
ton Street, Atlantic Street and Broadway, and Lasalle 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 171 

Street, and Chestnut Street, and Pennsylvania Ave- 
nue, without the inhalation of alcoholic malodors. 

Yea, all the patriots in both parties will come 
forth,the men who are tired of building asylums and 
penitentiaries and poor-houses, the men who want 
nothing themselves, but w T ho want to have the land 
saved from drunkenness and crime, and to become a 
paradise for comfort and prosperity — domestic, 
social, national. For the Church of God, for all 
patriots, for all good women as well as all good men, 
let the battle cry for the next twenty-five years be, 
" Down with the rum traffic! National prohibi- 
tion! No quarter for the license system! Eternal 
smash for the wine bottles! Death to the red 
dragon! " 

T. De Witt Talmage, D. D. 



v o v 



GOD'S WORK. 



GATHERING brands from the burning 
Plucking them out of the fire. 
Lifting the sheep that have wandered 

Out of the dust and the mire: 
Bringing home sheaves from the harvest, 

To lay at the Master's feet — 
Lord, all thy hosts of angels 
Must smile on a life so sweet. 

Speaking with fear of no man, 

Speaking with love for all. 
Warning the young and thoughtless 

From the wild beast, "Alcohol;" 



172 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

Showing the snares that the tempter 

Weaveth on every hand — 
Lord, all thy dear, dear angels 

Must smile on a life so grand. 

Fighting the bloodless battle 

With a heart that is true and bold — 
Fighting it not for glory, 

Fighting it not for gold, 
But out of love for his neighbor, 

And out of love for his Lord; 
I know that the hands of the angels 

Will crown him with his reward. 

For whoso w'orks for the Master, 

And whoso fights His fight, 
The angel's crown with a star- wreath; 

And it glows with gems most bright. 
They wear them for ever and ever, 

The saints in that land of bliss, 
And I know that heaven's best jewel 

Is kept for a soul like this. 

Ella Wheeler Wilcox. 






THE CLOSING SCEXE. 



OX the liquor vender stern Death had called, 
He his last day on earth had passed; 
The sins of the flesh and the love of gain, 
Found a fit tin 2: rebuke at last. 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 173 

His cold corpse lay in its damp bed of clay, 
And his salesrooms with crape were hung, 

While he, himself, the spiritual man, 
To the cold river Styx had come, 

Oh! the waves of that cruel stream flowed fast, 

He fain would have stayed on the land, 
For the loose sails shook in the cutting blast, 

As he felt the force of Death's hand. 
He entered the time-worn and dismal craft 

And trembled so in affright 
That the weird and hideous boatman laughed 

Till the echoes darkened the night. 

" Oh, where are we going?" the dealer cried. 

In mocking, sepulchral tone, 
The ferryman Charon grimly replied: 

" To the gates of your future home." 
A fearful voyage was that, in all truth, 

To the wretched and abject man; 
His thoughts returned to the days of his youth, 

And he wished he was young again. 

The boat touched the strand of a dreary land, 

" We separate here/' Charon said; 
On the shore stood Nemesis, pointing where 

A path through a dark tunnel led. 
Impelled by a power he could not see, 

He followed his merciless guide 
Until they arrived at a loathsome den, 

By the foot of a mountain side. 



174 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

"Spirit/ 5 the regal custodian said, 

" Behold here the home you have won! 
Here you must live till your victims forgive 

The numerous wrongs you have done. 
The growth of seeds sown in your earthly home 

You are called upon here to reap, 
And here you must learn what you should have 
known 

Ere you planted those seeds so deep." 

Grim dragons leered at the unhappy wretch, 

Noisome serpents hissed in" the gloom, 
As the ghastly guide turned the grating key 

And left him alone to his doom. 
Ah! who could find words for the thoughts that 
flowed 

Through the mind of the guilty man; 
He cursed his fate through his chattering teeth, 

And he wished he was young again. 

Who are my accusers? Come, bring them to me, 

My business was sanctioned by law, 
I paid for a license," he hoarsely cried. 

Oh! a terrible sight he saw, 
For the first to come was a tiny child, 

With a face that was pale and thin; 
She slowly lifted a skeleton hand 

And pointed it straight toward him : 

" I have sobbed with hunger many a night, 

As I lay on my bed of straw, 
While my father paid you the price of bread — 

Is starvation sanctioned by law ? 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 175 

Before the bars of the damp prison doors 
A poor drunkard's wife next appeared; 

He remembered well how, many a time, 
At her prayers and sobs he had sneered: 

" I begged of you through my fast-falling tears, 

As I knelt on your bar-room floor, 
Not to give to my half-crazed husband, rum, 

And at my petitions you swore. 
My husband was killed in a drunken brawl, 

Brought on by the liquor you sold, 
*May you now drink of the bitterest draught 

That the depths of Hades can hold!" 

A fair, blue-eyed boy, with a crimson gash 

Cut deep in the broad youthful brow, 
And his murderer passed, with fearful oaths. 

By the door of the culprit now. 
Full many a drunkard, with blood-shot eyes, 

And delirious, woeful form, 
Lingered near, to mock him, with jeering cries, 

Ere the sad procession moved on. 

There were little children, crying for bread, 

And mothers who wept for their sons, 
And maidens, whose lovers to crime were led, 

Slowly greeted him. one by one. 
Blind babes, deaf mutes, and children deformed 

In many a horrible way, 
Their sentence passed on the penitent wretch 

During that, his settlement day. 



176 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

Vainly he prayed in those hours for relief, 

For the past he could not efface, 
And he tore his hair in remorseful grief, 

As the fruits of his sins he faced. 
No license could help him under the weight 

Of the punishment he had won; 
No arguments fair were efficient there, 

For his work could not be undone. 

Oh! 'tis sad to think how many to-day, 

Sow seeds for harvest of tears, 
And that they must reap at some future date 

The results of their wasted years. 
They, too, must pass over the river Styx, 

With Charon, the ferryman old, 
And Nemesis follows, to find their home 

But a cell in a mountain cold,— 

A mountain whose walls are rocks of remorse 

That form round the spirit a cell, 
AVhere serpents of pain and dragons of grief 

Are symbolized inmates of hell. 
Oh, pause, ere too late, beware of your fate, 

Beware how you traffic with blood! 
The curse of the lost is the certain cost 

To those who embark on its flood. 



THE SURRENDER. 



'TWAS a widow's home and a winter night; 

^ With moonlight and snow the world was white, 
And out of the window a woman's eyes 
Looked over the field and up at the skies 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 177 

With a gaze that burned with a solemn ire 
That leaped like a flame from a heart on fire. 

Away and over the field of snow 

They had carried her husband a month ago 

To a drunkard's grave — and a drunkard's fame 

Like the blight of the mildew had covered his name, 

And her only son, with his father's thirst, 

Like a fiend at his throat, by the demon cursed, 

Was led in chains to the loathsome den 

Where demons are made of the hearts of men. 

She had plead with them, she had plead with him, 

Till her cheek grew pale and her eyes grew dim; 

She had pointed the way that his father trod 

That led to that grave 'neath the frozen sod. 

She had warned and counselled and prayed in vain — 

His soul was held as by hook and chain; 

And the demon laughed with chuckle and grin: 

"Aha!" he said, "but I shall win! 

Let the mother weep and beg and pine! 

By the law of the land the right is mine. 

There is no law like that of gold; 

I have bought the right to win and hold. 

I bought the right, and I bought it dear; 

Shall I give it up for a woman's tear?" 

Have I come to you with a story old 

That is hackneyed and worn till it will not hold 

To be passed around? It is not new; 

It is old as the crime that made it torn. 

It has run through long chapters of grief and shame, 

It has published its heroes name by name, 



178 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

And how much they could drink as the standard of 

fame. 
It lias taken us down to the churchyard glooms, 
And painfully led us among the tombs; 
Then backward again to the shame and grief — 
The same thing over as leaf by leaf. 
The world has read it again and again 
Till its heart grew numb to the sense of pain, 
Till the eyes grow drowsy that used to weep; 
And the tale went on, but the world was asleep. 

But there is a change, and the story true 

Is growing apace into something new. 

The world is afrake, and its ear is set, 

Its lips are apart, and its eyelids wet; 

For that night, while her boy was in the den 

Where demons are made of the hearts of men, 

While they rilled the bowl that he quickly quaffed, 

While they spake his mother's name, and laughed, 

She out of her window, in stern despair, 

Lifted to God a mother's prayer; 

And God drew near her, and He laid His hand 

Upon her with a strange command: 

" Arise thou, therefore," said the Lord; 

" Be doing, and you have my word: 

Lo, I am with thee, and My power 

Shall be thy heritage and dower, " 

" What can I do but weep?" she said. 
" The work is great; send Thou instead 
Some mighty one, for I am weak: 
From out these tears how can I speak?" 






FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 179 

Then came the word, " Canst thou refuse? 
The weak things of the world I choose. 
Nothing but love can conquer death; 
Sin yields to none but trusting Faith, 
Take but thy broken heart of love; 
The faith whose eye is turned above. 
Go in thy weakness, and the strength 
Of God shall be revealed at length." 

Across the snow-clad field she went, 
Her form beneath her burden bent: 
Her shrinking steps despised the way 
That to the haunt of demons lay, 
The path whose end she knew too well — 
The path whose steps take hold on hell. 

She gained the door, she entered in: 
The air was like the breath of sin; 
But silence fell upon the throng, 
The singer's voice dropped from his song, 
Her son looked up with sullen eye. 
She stood a moment silently, 

Then silently she knelt and prayed; 
They looked upon her, and, dismayed, 
They felt the prayer they did not hear, 
And trembled with a nameless fear. 

She only pra}^ed and turned away, 
And took the path that homeward lay, 
While in her inmost soul she felt 
That God spake for her while she knelt. 



180 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

Next day she went and knelt the same; 
Without a word she went and came, 
And day by day, with tearful face 
And silent lips, she sought the place, 
And poured the anguish of her prayer 
Before the Lord, and left it there. 

The place grew dreadful; for the Lord 
In faithfulness fulfilled His word. 
She went in weakness, but the strength 
Of God was manifest; at length 
His heavy hand upon them fell 
And from the wine-cup swept the spell, 
And in his soul the drinker shrank 
E'en while the venomed cup he drank. 

They watched for her; and when she came 

They crept away with guilty shame; 

And all day long, and all the night, 

Asleep, awake, by dark or light, 

That woman, with the silvery hair, 

Just as she bowed in silent prayer, 

Haunted the man who kept the den 

Where demons were made of the hearts of men. 

At length, one day, as the door she swung, 
He met her, and asked, with faltering tongue, 
How long she intended to come and pray? 
" As long as you sell! " He turned away 
To hide from her his burning cheek, 
To gather the voice with which to speak. 
" Then I surrender! I can not bear 
This awful spell of a woman's prayer!" 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 181 

So the den was closed, and bells were rung, 
And shouts leaped forth, and songs were sung; 
And like rushing flames the tidings flew 
Of what a woman's prayer could do. 

Then out of heaven there came a word, 
And it tilled and thrilled the hearts that heard: 
" This work has waited a hundred years 
For woman's prayer and woman's tears." 

Mrs. S. M. I. Henry. 



RUM THE WORST ENEMY OF THE WORK- 
ING-CLASSES. 



GATHER up the money that the working-classes 
have spent for rum during the last thirty years, 
and I will build for every workingmau a house, and 
lay out for him a garden and clothe his sons in 
broadcloth and his daughters in silks, and stand at 
his front door a prancing span of sorrels or bays, 
and secure him a policy of life insurance so that 
the present home may be well maintained after he 
is dead. The most persistent, most overpowering 
enemy of the working-classes is intoxicating liquor. 
It is the anarchist of the centuries, and has boy- 
cotted and is now boycotting the body and mind 
and soul of American labor. It is to it a worse foe c 
than monopoly, and worse than associated capital. 
It annually swindles industry out of a large percent- 
age of its earnings. 



382 TE]UPERA^X , E SELECTIONS 

I will undertake to say that there is not a healthy 
laborer in the United States who, within the next 
twenty years, if he will refuse all intoxicating bev- 
erages and be saving, may not become a capitalist 
on a small scale. 

But, oh, workingmen of America, take your morn- 
ing dram, and your noon dram, and your evening 
dram, and spend everything you have over for to- 
bacco and excursions, and you insure poverty for your- 
self and your children forever. If by some generous 
fiat of the capitalists of this country, or by a new law 
of the government of the United States, 25 per cent., 
or 50 per cent., or 100 per cent, were added to the 
wages of the working-classes of America, it would 
be no advantage to hundreds of thousands of them 
unless they stopped strong drink. Aye, until they 
quit that evil habit, the more money, the more ruin; 
the more wages, the more holes in the bag. 

God only knows what the drunkard suffers. Pain 
files on every nerve, and travels every muscle, and 
gnaws every bone, and burns with every flame, and 
stings with every poison, and pulls at him with 
every torture. What reptiles crawl over his creep- 
ing limbs! What fiends stand by his midnight 
pillow! What groans tear his ear! What horrors 
shiver through his soul! Talk of the rack, talk of 
the Inquisition, talk of the funeral pyre, talk of the 
crushing Juggernaut — he feels them all at once. 

I suppose, when an inebriate wakes up in the lost 
world, he will feel an infinite thirst clawing on him. 
Now, down in the world, although he may have 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 183 

been very poor, lie could beg or he could steal five 
cents with which to get that which would slake his 
thirst for a little while; but in eternity where is the 
rum to come from? Dives could not get one drop 
of water. From what chalice of fire will the hot 
lips of the drunkard drain his draught? No one to 
brew it. No one to mix it. No one to pour it. 
No one to fetch it. Millions of worlds then for the 
dregs which the young man just now flung on the 
sawdusted floor of the restaurant. Millions of worlds 
now for the rind thrown out from the punch-bowl 
of an earthly banquet. Dives cried for water. The 
inebriate cries for rum. Oh, the deep, exhausting, 
exasperating, everlasting thirst of the drunkard in 
hell! Why, if a fiend came up to earth for some 
infernal work in a grog-shop and should go back 
taking on its wing just one drop of that for which 
the inebriate in the lost world longs, what excite- 
ment would it make there! Put that one drop from 
off the fiend's wing on the tip of the tongue of the 
destroyed inebriate; let the liquid brightness just 
touch it; let the drop be very small, if it only have 
in it the smack of alcoholic drink; let that drop 
just touch the lost inebriate in the lost world, and 
he would spring to his feet and cry, "That is rum, 
aha! That is rum!" And it would wake up the 
echoes of the damned: "Give me rum! Give me 
rum! Give me rum!" In the future world I do 
not believe that it will be the absence of God that 
will make the drunkard's sorrow. I do not believe 
that it will be the absence of light. I do not believe 



184 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

that it will be the absence of holiness. I think it 
will be the absence of rum. Oh, "look not upon 
the wine when it is red, when it moveth itself aright 
in the cup, for at the last it biteth like a serpent, 
and it stingetli like an adder." 

T. De Witt Tallage, D. D. 



THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC ANTAGONISTIC TO 
AMERICAN LIBERTY. 



SOME there are who urge that "'the liquor traffic 
is an old institution; that the State is composed 
of people who have come from different countries 
and different nationalities; that the German having 
come from his Fatherland has the right to bring 
here its customs; that the Irishman coming from 
the Evergreen Isle has the right to bring the cus- 
toms of that country here." 

The political customs of this country are the 
legitimate children of the social customs and life of 
the founders of the Government, of the men who 
made our liberties and our institutions possible. 

If I ever get indignant in my life, it is when I 
hear men born in other countries, together with 
dirty, dough-faced American demagogues, sneering 
at the Pilgrims, and ridiculing Puritanical morals 
and ideas; and I most earnestly protest, in free 
America, against the beer smut-mill being turned 
on the men who planted our liberties, and suffered 
and died to perpetuate them. A few American 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 185 

sneaks, in order to catch the beer vote, enter the 
cemetery where America's noblest dead are buried, 
desecrate the graves, and attempt to defile the mem- 
ory of those who built the Government and estab- 
lished the liberties under which these ghouls live. 
Who were these Pilgrims who are now made a by- 
word and jest by the beer-guzzlers of this country? 
What did they come to America for? What kind of 
a country did they find? Britain's poetess answers: 

" The breaking waves dashed high 

On a stern and rock-bound coast, 
And the woods against a stormy sky 

Their giant branches tossed; 
And the heavy night hung dark 

The hills and waters o'er, 
When a band of exiles moored their bark 

On the wild New England shore. 

Not as the conqueror comes, 

They, the true-hearted, came; 
Not with the roll of stirring drums, 

And the trump that sings of fame: 
Not as the flying come, 

In silence and in fear; — 
They shook the depths of the desert gloom 

With their hymns of lofty cheer. 

Amidst the storm they sang, 

And the stars heard, and the sea; 
And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang 

To the anthems of the free. 
The ocean eagle soared 

From his nest by the white wave's foam, 
And the rocking pines of the forest roared — 

This was their welcome home. 



186 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

There were men with hoary hair 

Amidst that Pilgrim band: 
Why had they come to wither there, 

Away from their childhood's land? 
There was woman's fearless eye, 

Lit by her deep love's truth; 
There was manhood's brow serenely high, 

And the fiery heart of youth. 

What sought they thus afar? 

Bright jewels of the mine? 
The wealth of seas, the spoils of war? — 

They sought a faith's pure shrine! 
Ay, call it holy ground. 

The soil where first they trod: 
They have left unstained what there they found — 

Freedom to worship God." 

By struggle and toil, through disease and suffer- 
ing, they developed the land and planted the ideas 
of liberty in their descendants. 

Did Americans close the doors of the Republic 
and say, " We are free; let the world take care of 
itself? " Xo! They welcomed the down-trodden 
of all nations. They have been received as broth- 
ers, and made members of the family. After all 
this, for these refugees from the despotisms of 
Europe to attempt to destroy American customs by 
traducing American dead is disgraceful. 

The idea that because customs have lived in 
another country, and have been developed in another 
form of government, they must of right be allowed 
to continue here, is utterly fallacious. 

The idea that this country has no form, no cus- 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 187 

toms, no laws, no institutions, which immigrants 
are bound to respect; that men have the right to 
come here and follow any customs, any. ideas, any 
theories, and any practices, is an idea utterly antag- 
onistic to American institutions, and if carried out 
will ultimately build on the chaos of our liberties 
the worst despotism that the world ever saw. 

The founders of the Republic recognized the fact 
that the foundation of universal liberty must be 
universal education. All the institutions that 
America inherited have been moulded, shaped, and 
developed. Among these inherited institutions was 
the accursed drinking-place. The dram-shop is not 
a child of American customs, liberty, ideas, schools 
or theories. It was inherited from the despotic 
governments of Europe. Its results have been the 
same as in Europe — drunkenness, debauchery, vice, 
crime, riot, communism. 

Compromise has followed compromise, the unre- 
strained sale, license, high license, civil damage, 
local option; and I wish to assert in the light of his- 
tory that all these compromises have been failures 
to just the extent that principle has been sacrificed; 
and successes just to the extent that right has been 
recognized, and prohibitory features incorporated 
into their text. Thus this institution has been 
tested and found unworthy of a place in a free 
republic. It is an enemy of American liberties, and 
must be destroyed. 

John B. Finch. 



188 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

THE GREAT SCOURGE. 



II OWEVER viewed, and wherever found, intern- 
al- perance, in its beginning, its progress, and 
its end, is everywhere marked by desolation and 
woe. Alcohol, both in name and in truth, is the 
poison of our species. Chemical analysis and phys- 
iological experiment have established beyond con- 
troversy that alcohol, received into the stomach, 
remains unchanged — unassimilated — and, as such, 
travels with the blood, through the various arteries, 
veins, and organs of the system, not as blood nor as 
its fit companion, but as a murderous associate, a 
treacherous highwayman, charged with poison and 
commissioned to destroy. 

In its journey round it feeds upon the liver, 
corrodes the lungs, burns the stomach, ruins the 
appetite, impairs digestion, discolors and vitiates 
the blood, defiles the breath, crimsons the nose, 
parches the lips, blisters the tongue, scalds the 
throat, husks the voice, bloats the face, dims the 
eye, wastes the muscles, palsies the limbs, deranges 
the nerves, and consumes the heart; and, as though 
its warrant was not yet fully executed, a detached 
portion of it aims at the head, breaks through its 
delicate vessels, crowds out reason, and takes up its 
poisonous, sacrilegious residence on the brain, and 
fears not to profane Divinity's earthly temple. 

But even now its baneful work is hardly begun. 
Having thus undermined the health, and prepared 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 189 

the system for the ravages of disease, it strikes at 
the moral and intellectual powers of man. It en- 
feebles the understanding, impairs the judgment, 
effaces the memory, extinguishes sensibility, pol- 
lutes the imagination, depraves the taste, stupefies 
conscience, annihilates honor, prostrates self-respect, 
debases the social affections, sours the disposition, 
inflames the wicked passions, dethrones the reason, 
and contaminates the heart, and thus quenches 
rational life and blots out the moral image of 
Deity's handiwork. Why, therefore, must not the 
intemperate man become a human fiend? Who is 
safe where he is? 

And yet its march of ruin is onward still! It 
reaches abroad to others, invades the family and 
social circle, and spreads w r oe and sorrow all around. 
It cuts down youth in its vigor, manhood in its 
strength, and age in its weakness. It breaks the 
father's heart, bereaves the doting mother, extin- 
guishes natural affection, erases conjugal love, blots 
out filial attachment, blights parental hope, and 
brings down mourning age in sorrow to the grave. 
It produces weakness, not strength; sickness, not 
health; death, not life. It makes wives widows, 
children orphans, fathers fiends, and all of them 
paupers and beggars. It covers the land with idle- 
ness, poverty, disease and crime. It fills your jails, 
supplies your almshouses, and demands your asy- 
lums. It engenders controversies, fosters quarrels, 
and cherishes riots. It contemns law, spurns order, 
and loves mobs. It is the life-blood of the gam- 



190 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

bier, the aliment of the counterfeiter, the prop of 
the highwayman, and the support of the midnight 
incendiary. 

It countenances the liar, respects the thief, and 
esteems the blasphemer. It violates obligation, 
reverences fraud and honors infamy: it defames 
benevolence, hates love, accuses virtue, and slanders 
innocence. 

It suborns witnesses, nurses perjury, defiles the 
jury-box, and stains the judicial ermine. It bribes 
votes, disqualifies voters, corrupts elections, pollutes 
our institutions, and endangers our government. It 
degrades the citizen, debases the legislator, dishon- 
ors the statesman, and disarms the patriot. It 
brings shame, not honor; terror, not safety; despair, 
not hope; misery, not happiness. It poisons felic- 
ity, kills peace, ruins morals, blights confidence, 
slays reputation, and wipes out national honor; 
then curses the world and laughs at its ruins. 



THE NEW DECLARATION OF INDEPEN- 
DENCE. 



A HEAVIER yoke than that the British king 
1* placed upon the neck of our Revolutionary 
fathers is upon us and our children. A bondage 
more abject than that which lifted its destroying 
band against the Union a score and more of years 
ago is forging its fetters for the enslavement of the 
Republic. By a long train of abuses and usurpa- 



s 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 191 

tions King Alcohol, through the liquor traffic in 
this goodly land, openly declares his ability to 
reduce us to his despotic rule by his control of the 
dominant political organizations of the country. 

The Republic must triumph over rum, or rum 
will triumph over the Republic. " All history 
teaches this ; observation and reason confirm it." 

In most of our cities the drinking-saloon is the 
central power around which politics revolve, and 
which dictates candidates and party politics. Even 
in our national elections it sometimes exercises a. 
controlling influence and decides presidential con- 
tests. 

This monster, sitting supreme in the politics of 
this country, has enacted laws authorizing him to 
open in all our towns and cities slaughter-houses of 
men, women and children and of all virtue. 

He has enacted laws permitting him to transform 
men into beasts. 

He has despoiled labor, burdened property with 
excessive taxation, impoverished whole communi- 
ties, hindered education, corrupted morals, fostered 
crimes, aided all classes of vice and wrong, and 
plunged his unhappy victims into shame and deg- 
radation. 

He sits supreme in the National Congress and 
makes laws in the country's capital. 

He governs courts of justice, and makes ministers 
of the law and legislatures his lackeys. 

He silences the preacher in his pulpit and muzzles 
the editor at his desk. 



192 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

The time would fail me to tell the thousandth 
part of the evils, multiplying and destructive, that 
flow out of the infamous liquor traffic. Oh, for an 
uprising of righteous indignation, for an aroused 
American conscience, for patriotic devotion to 
home and country like that which gave inspiration 
and faith to Jonas Parker and his neighbors when 
they reddened the village green of Lexington witli 
their blood on that glorious morning a century and 
more ago, when the old Revolution burst into mag- 
nificent blossoms as the shot was fired that echoed 
round the world; for an enlightened public opinion, 
the mightiest advocate of any question; for the 
combined forces of Christian home, Christian Church 
and Christian commonwealth in battle array against 
the traffic in theft and murder, until it shall be thun- 
dered from every political Sinai, national and State: 
"Thou shalt not, and there shall be no legalized 
saloon where floats the starry flag of the free." 
Not until then will the infamous business cease; 
not until then will we be delivered from its Satanic 
sorceries. Temporizing policies are a failure. Un- 
der all systems of license-regulation or tax, the 
work of ruin and death goes on. Myriads of homes 
are poisoned, the prosperity of the nation is under- 
mined, the strength of our race wasted, millions are 
hurried to early and dishonored graves, and a lurid 
shadow is cast upon the life beyond. The prohibi- 
tion of the liquor traffic is the demand of the people, 
and politicians and statesmen who fail to heed it are 
treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath. Pro- 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 193 

hibition is in the air. The nation's heart is begin- 
ning to throb to its music. Its coming is whispered 
on every breeze. The rising tide breaks all along 
the shore, and each succeeding white-fringed billow 
washes further up the strand. 

" ' Tis weary watching wave on wave, 

And yet the tide heaves onward ; 
We build, like corals, grave on grave, 

But pave a pathway sunward. 
We are beaten back in many a fray, 

But newer strength we borrow; 
And where the vanguard rests to-day 

The rear shall camp to-morrow." 

Nothing can resist the onward march of a genuine 
reform. Every such movement enters into and 
becomes a part of the Messianic purpose to set 
judgment in the earth. Agitation on this question 
is the duty of the hour. Let it go on from press, 
platform and pulpit, in the prayer-meetings and at the 
ballot-box, until every patriot who loves his country, 
every Christian who loves his God, every philanthro- 
pist who loves his race, every father who loves his 
child, every son of the Republic will, a marshaled 
host, uplift the Constitution as a banner of reform, 
and under its folds march to the ballot-boxes of the 
land, and under an avalanche of freemen's ballots 
bury beyond resurrection the American saloon. 
Then shall our whole Union become the citadel of 
sobriety, the national name be purged of this great 
shame, and our glorious banner, 



194 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

" Whose hues are all of heaven — 
Its red the sunset's dye, 
The whiteness of the moon-lit cloud, 
The blue of morning sky," 

shall be the flag of hope, for all mankind as it floats 
over our sober, free and happy people. 

" O'er the high and o'er the lowly 
Floats that banner bright and holy, 

In the rays of freedom's sun. 
In our nation's heart imbedded, 
O'er our Union newly wedded, 
One in all and all in one." 

Gen. Clinton B. Fisk. 



SHALL AMERICA BE EXILED FOREVER BY 
THE LIQUOR POWER ? 



HPHERE is a class of men rebellious to all law, 
-*■ glorying in their rebellion, defying the people 
to curb their power — the saloon-keepers. And this 
shameless rebellion against law is in order to flood 
the land more freely with alcohol, to make drunk- 
ards, ruin families, fill jails and poorhouses. The 
organ of the liquor dealers pointedly asked the other 
day why temperance speakers attack men who are 
doing business just as others in the grocery or the 
clothing business. The reasons are very plain. No 
other business entails woe and sin as the liquor trade, 
and no other business is lawless in its methods, and 
defiant before the country, as the liquor traffic. And 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 195 

to secure impunity in their lawlessness and to prevent 
the enactment of new laws, and a wish on the part 
of the country to enforce any, the saloon-keepers 
and their leaders are at work to control the politics 
of the Republic. The charge needs no proof; but 
the people need to be awakened to the meaning of 
the fact. 

It is not denied that men, whatever their fitness 
for office, who are not acceptable to the saloon-keepers 
cannot be elected. The saloon-keepers are inter- 
ested in the caucus, and from the day of nomination 
to that of election they have an eye single to business. 
Ambitious candidates must propitiate the gods 
either by sworn promise of yeoman service or by 
limitless orders to treat the " boys." Men in office 
fear them; their ire is an omen of future political 
obscurity. 

The traffic can afford to threaten. It wields 
great power. The traffic is organized; its officers 
reach upward in the commercial world, and throw 
around significant nods in banks, stores, and news- 
paper offices. It is generous in the distribution of 
coin. There is a great deal at stake, and a present 
judicious investment will secure large future divi- 
dends. The liquor lobby at Albany admitted before 
a legislative committee that they had expended 
about $100,000 to influence legislation. State and 
national parties quail before the traffic. How often 
sails are trimmed and planks squared in anticipation 
of the liquor squall! And when the charts of a 
convention bear tracings of restrictive legislation^ 



196 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

the candidates of the convention tremble for their 
safety unless their strong principles give them cour- 
age and law-loving citizens come to their aid. 
Have yon observed how in the very halls of the 
National Congress, amid incomprehensible amend- 
ments and counter-amendments to the revenue laws, 
one idea is plainly discernible — alcohol's friends 
mean that they shall be reckoned with? 

The cities, very naturally, suffer most from the 
political manoeuvres of the liquor traffic. The 
liquor men claim for themselves a prescriptive right 
to seats in a municipal council: other city offices 
they concede to their friends. It is manifest, 
though a lamentable fact, that their influence in 
the cities of America makes void of effect restrictive 
liquor legislation and establishes the violation of 
law by the traffic as the normal condition of affairs. 
Owing to it the government of our large cities has 
become the problem of the country. Statesmen are 
alarmed. The terrible conclusion is forcing itself 
upon thoughtful minds that in cities universal 
suffrage, the corner-stone of democracy of our 
peculiar American political institutions, is a failure. 
It is not the people, it is the populace that rule. 
And such a populace! Low-minded, rough in man- 
ners, uncouth in gait, confirmed in idleness and 
bent on crime, the terror of well-behaved citizens — 
such as they must be, brutalized by alcohol. 

All this means that we turn the power of govern- 
ment into agencies to foment intemperance — for, to 
sustain and develop the liquor traffic in its present 






FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 197 

methods is plainly to foment intemperance. It 
means that we permit and authorize the exploitation 
of a vile and tiger-like appetite in the interest of 
the cupidity and the political power of liquor men. 
It means that we set the seal of the republic recog- 
nizing and approving, upon intemperance and the 
making of intemperance. 

It means, to our national disgrace, that America is 
ruled by the liquor power. It means that Americans 
have not the will nor the ability to enforce law, that 
lawlessness abides with us, that our legislation is 
mere verbiage. It is difficult to explain the popular 
indifference to intemperance and the methods of the 
liquor traffic. It is chiefly, no doubt, due to our 
ignorance of the actual condition of things. 

This indifference is the misfortune. Barren dis- 
cussions as to the proper methods in dealing with 
the evil would soon cease were we in earnest in seek- 
ing a method. We know not what to do, because 
we desire to do nothing, and but little if anything 
will ever be done until the people of America, 
thoroughly conscious of their danger and of their 
duty, shall in their indignation and their might 
declare in thunder tones that the rum-power must 
cease. 

Archbishop Ireland. 



198 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

TKITE VICTORY. 



HE stood with a foot on the threshold 
And a cloud on his boyish face > 
While his city comrade urged him 
To enter the gorgeous place, 

" There's nothing to fear, old fellow! 
It isn't a lion's den. 
Here waits you a royal welcome 
From lips of the bravest. men/' 

'Twas the old, old voice of the tempter 
That sought in the old, old way, 

To lure with a lying promise 
The innocent feet astray. 

" You'd think it was Blue Beard's closet, 
To see how you stare and shrink! 
I tell you there's naught to harm yon, — 
It's only a game and a drink! " 

He heard the words with a shudder, — 
" It's only a game and a drink! " 

And his lips made bold to answer: 

" But what would my mother think?" 

The name that his heart held dearest 

Had started a secret spring, 
And forth from the wily tempter 

He fled like a hunted thing. 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 199 

Away! till the glare of the city 

And its gilded halls of sin 
Are shut from his sense and vision . 

The shadows of night within. 

Away! till his feet have bounded 
O'er fields where his childhood trod; 

Away! in the name of virtue 

And the strength of his mother's God! " 

What though he was branded " coward!" 

In the blazoned halls of vice, 
And banned by his baffled tempter, 

Who sullenly tossed the dice. 

On the page where the angel keepeth 

The record of deeds well done, 
That night was the story written 

Of a glorious battle won. 

And he stood by his home in the starlight, 

All guiltless of sword and shield, 
A braver and nobler victor 

Than the hero of bloodiest field ! 

M. A. Maitland. 



OUR REGIMENTS OF REFORM. 



HPHE present attitude of the temperance cause is a 
■*■ bewilderment in many minds. "What next?" 
is the question being asked with moist eye and 
trembling voice. What we want now is to mass all 



200 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

our troops of all shades of belief. I look off in 
many directions, and see the regiments of reform 
are doing splendid work. Some of them are shoot- 
ing this way and some are shooting that way, and 
some are shooting into the air. I put the field-glass 
to my eye and I look off in one direction, and I see 
the regiments of the Sons of Temperance, who have 
already saved enough men to make a good-sized 
heaven. Good cheer to them! I put the field- 
glass to my eye and I look off in another direction, 
and I see the regiments of the Good Templars, who 
are girdling the earth with their benedictions. 
They have a pass-word in their association. I know 
not what it is, but I suggest as the pass-word most 
appropriate for them the word "Victory." Good 
cheer to them! I put the field-glass to my eye and 
I look off in another direction, and I see the regi- 
ments of the Rechabites, who since 1835 have been 
filling the air with sounds of mercy and emancipa- 
tion and the crash of broken wine-pitchers. Good 
cheer to them! I put the field-glass to my eye and 
I look off in another direction, and I see the regi- 
ments of brave women. These are the Deborahs 
who fear not to go out and fight the iron chariots of 
opposition when even the knees of Barak tremble. 
Good cheer to them! I put the field-glass to my eye 
and I look off again, and I see the great regiments 
of the Prohibitionists, who are doing their chief 
work in the establishment of laws which shall make 
the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquor an 
impossibility. And God will in the end give them 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 201 

complete success, even though Supreme Courts 
should revoke all favorable decisions. There is a 
higher power than human power. No one can 
doubt the issue if ever there should be placed upon 
the calendar a case like this: "The Lord God 
Almighty versus The Supreme Court of the United 
States/' About the result of such a contest there 
can be no uncertainty. 

Mass all the troops, all the regiments of temper- 
ance reform, not for a Bridge of Lodi, but for a 
Waterloo. Why not a Waterloo? We have enough 
men; we have enough artillery; we have enough 
courage; we have enough Wellingtons; we have 
enough Bluchers; we have enough reinforcements; 
and coming in on our side is the God of Samuel and 
David and Joshua — him of Megiddo, him of the 
Valley of Ajalon. The Lord of hosts now strikes 
His hand upon His thigh until the sword rattles 
in His buckler, while He declares that no weapon 
formed against us shall prosper. It has been de- 
creed in high heaven that sin must go down and 
righteousness must triumph. Do you believe in 
our final victory? If not, get out! Cross over to 
the other side. Better is an armed foe than a weak- 
kneed coadjutor. I suppose that it seemed ridicu- 
lous when Moses stretched out his hand over the 
Red Sea. What power could that have over the 
waters? But the east wind blew all night; the 
waters gathered into two adamantine walls on 
either side; the billow r s reared as God's hand pulled 
back upon their crystal bits. Wheel into line, O 



202 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

Israel! March! march! Pearls crash under the 
feet. The flying spray springs a rainbow arch over 
the victors. The shout of hosts mounting the 
beach answer the shout of hosts mid-sea; until, as 
the last line of the Israelites has gained the beach, 
the shields clang and the cymbals clap; and as the 
waters whelm the pursuing foe, the swift-fingered 
winds on the white keys of the foam play the grand 
march of Israel delivered, and the awful dirge of 
Egyptain overthrow. So we go forth, and stretch 
out the hand of prayer and Christian effort over the 
Ked Sea of alcoholism and crime. "Aha ! aha !" 
say the deriding world. But wait. The winds of 
divine help will begin to blow; the way will clear 
for the great army of Christian philanthropists; 
the glittering treasures of the world's beneficence 
will line the path of our feet; and to the other 
shore we will be greeted with the clash of all 
heaven's cymbals; while those who resist and deride 
and pursue us will fall under the sea, and there 
will be nothing left of them, but here and there, 
cast high and dry upon the beach, the splintered 
wheel of a chariot, and thrust out from the surf 
the breathless nostril of a riderless charger. Mighty 
God! save us, and save our families, and save the 
land from the scathing, scalding, blasting, damning 
influence of strong drink! 

T. De Witt Talmage, D. D. 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 203 

FAILURE. 



COME, John, sit down by me; it frets my soul 
To see you walking up and down the room. 
The thud of your slow feet is like the fall 
Of clods into a grave. I can not bear 
To see that head, that never stooped before, 
Bowed on your breast in tearless agony — 
It maddens me, for well I know you feel 
The deep disgrace of rearing drunken sons 
More than the grief of losing. 

Come, sit clown, 
For all my mother instincts are awake, 
And longings fierce, intense and tigerish prove 
All mothers — beasts or women — are alike. 
I almost hate you for your pride. Your face 
Is rigid and monotonous and drear 
As some dry desert. Is there no remorse 
Gnawing your heart-strings? Does no sorrow thrum 
The tight-drawn strings of pain until your heart 
Is numb with aching? 

Oh, the glorious strength 
Of manhood, that can find no room for grief 
For very pride of heart! Oh, selfish men! 
What do you know of woman? In her two-fold life 
The mother learns a deeper mystery 
Of pain and pleasure. In her child she lives, 
And suffers, and is happy. She can feel 
The joy and grief-throbs of its little heart 



204 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

In her responsive breast. The child is but 

A little of herself — the good is hers, 

And even the very worst her secret heart 

Owns for its own and covers with a veil of palliation. 

Oh, my wayward boy! my erring lost one! 

Yes — I will be calm — 
Your voice could always calm me. You can tell 
How many years since you have held me thus 
Close to your breast, my husband? Does it seem 
So long since you were young? To me the past 
Is but yesterday. I could believe 
It was last week we sat talking thus 
With our one boy — your pride, my all in all — 
Crowing and tossing up his small, fat hands 
In awkward baby grace upon our laps. 
Have you forgotten, John, that summer's night 
When we were wondering what his life would be 
When lie grew up? And how you proudly said 
That some day Johnny should be President; 
But I said I loved best to think him still 
A little baby, nestling his small head 
Close to my breast, and looking up to mine 
With pleading eyes for comfort in his pain. 
And then you laughed and told me I would spoil 
The boy with petting. Ah, John, who spoiled most? 
You, with your noble sternness, sparing not 
Your heart nor his to force him to grow up 
Stniight-trunked and fruitful, like yourself; or I, 
Twining my love about him like a vine, 
To hide his rugged branches with green leaves? 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 205 

I know we both were wrong: but you the most, 

For you forget that to the little shoot 

God whispers how to grow; the husbandman 

But loosens the hard soil, pulls out the weeds, 

And gives its growth free way. You tried to raise 

An oak from a young thorn — my woman's eyes 

Softened its fibres with too many rains. 

We could do better, John, if God had pleased 

To trust us to bring up another son. 

Alas, we have none other; this was all! 

This, that refused to walk in the straight road, 

Bocky and flowerless, that you made for him; 

But jumped the hedges and ran his own wild course 

Among the snares and pitfalls: this, that brought 

Shame to your head, and sorrow to my heart — 

That left our door that stormy winter night 

With your grim benediction and my prayers 

Following his staggering steps: this, that came home 

Only last night with his young limbs all gashed 

And crunched by cruel car wheels, was our all — 

Our baby boy that, some short years ago, 

We tossed and kissed between us. 

my God! 
And shall I never see my boy again? 
I can not think of " never/ 5 Shall to-day 
Succeed to yesterday, and yesterday 
Glide backward to last year: the years grow old, 
And each in passing leaves a few grey hairs 
And a new grief-mark, till my head is white 
And my face seamed and ugly: shall my strength 
Ooze out a grain a day, till my light step 



206 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

Becomes a feeble hobble? Shall I still 

Live on, and on, and on, and die at last 

Of utter uselessness, and until death 

Still yearn, and yearn, and never see him once? 

God, I can not bear it! 

Let me go! 
You can not comfort me with Scripture texts, 
Nor make me say that it is better so. 

1 know he brought down shame upon our heads — 
I know he was a drunkard, and his 
Life one round of vice and crime — but he was mine; 
Crime could not make him a thing so low 

But he could love his mother, and that love 
Was more to me than goodness. Ah, who knows 
How many times he may have longed to come 
And lay his head upon her breast again, 
And your cold looks prevented — who can tell 
What angel guided home his reeling steps 
That awful night — who knows what might have been 
But for your bitter words that drove him back 
To perish in the storm? 

Nay, John, come back! 
It is a fearful tiling to see you weep. 
Forgive my cruel words, for I am wild 
With longing for my boy. You are the tower 
That shelters me. I could not bear to have 
You other than you are — firm, rocky, strong; 
But I am like a foolish mother-bird 
Whose nest is empty. Bear with me awhile 
Till I have grown acquainted with my grief, 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 207 

And learn to call it friend, and weep with it 
In quiet hours alone. 

This dreadful hour 
Brings us old age. I must give up my dreams, 
And you your high ambitions. Once again 
We must be lovers, John, and so make smooth 
The rocky hill of life, whose steep descent 
We must go down together. Kiss me, John. 

Charles Quiet. 



NO SURRENDER! NO COMPROMISE! 



TT is a fact that ninety-nine per cent, of all the 
A genuine temperance work, in educating the 
public sentiment, in securing sobriety in the youth 
of the land, in reforming the intemperate, and in 
creating sound legislative enactments, that has been 
done for the past forty years, and that is being done 
to-day, is the work of the friends of total ab- 
stinence: 

" They may laugh at her name, 
They may blazon her shame, 
But there's life in the old tree yet." 

Total abstinence and prohibition have carried our 
cause to the high-water mark of the hour. We will 
not repudiate them; we will not permit the enemy 
to suggest new methods, to invent tactics for us, or 
to clandestinely capture and spike our guns. When 



208 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

the foe proposes compromise, when dealers and 
drinkers get up a temperance society, keep your 
mind on the wooden horse of the Greeks, and keep 
the walls of the city intact. " Beware the Greeks, 
bearing presents." To entrust the Koman Empire 
to Catiline's band of traitors is madness! The" Old 
Guard" of the temperance cause know how to die, 
but not how to surrender. When the devil joins 
the church it is a symptom of serious illness. Strat- 
egy has supplanted open battle. " Put none but 
Americans on guard." We have fought too long 
and hard, and have gained too great vantage-ground, 
to think of compromise with a scared enemy. We 
have nothing to gain and everything to lose by an 
armistice. We have aroused public opinion; we 
have aroused the Church as never before; we have 
created a powerful temperance literature; we have 
been reinforced by the artillery of science; we have 
won to our side the majesty of law; we have enlisted 
the prayers and purpose, patience and persistence, of 
legions of Christian women; we have been cheered 
by the signal benedictions of God, and compromise 
or surrender of total abstinence and prohibition 
would be shameless treason. 

Xo moral question is ever finally settled until set- 
tled in harmony with the principles of uncompro- 
mising truth and justice and righteousness: 

" For right is right, since God is God, 
And right our cause shall win; 
To doubt would be disloyalty, 
To falter would be sin," 






FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 209 

God thunders against all compromise with evil, and 
foretells certain defeat: "And your covenant with 
death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with 
hell shall not stand when the overflowing scourge 
shall pass through, then shall ye be trodden down 
by it." The least compromise with evil is moral 
treason to God. Our only business is to fight evil 
with relentless purpose. Half-and-half men can 
not be relied on. Sandy was a jolly Scotchman and 
great dancer. Converted, he joined the Church and 
quit dancing. One day on the street the bagpipes 
came by, playing shrill and loud the Highland 
Fling. Sandy began to dance wildly with one foot, 
keeping the other fixed on the sidewalk. " Mon," 
said a bystander, "are ye lame?" "ISTae! nae! but 
one fut belongs to the church, while the ither is wild 
as the de'il." We want men to stand square on both 
feet for total abstinence, and to resist the sorcery of 
the bagpipes when they play champagne suppers or 
a bottle of wine at dinner. But didn't Paul advise 
Timothy to take "a little wine"? Yes. Hear it: 
" Drink no longer w T ater, but use a little wine for 
thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities." 
Ah! here is the proof that Timothy was a teetotaler, 
a cold-water man, so radical and abstemious that, 
amid manifold infirmities, Paul has to plead with 
him to try it as a medicine. If he had not been a 
total abstainer, Paul would not have been obliged to 
urge him to change his habits. Oh! for a genera- 
tion of cold-water men like Timothy, that nothing 
short of a revelation from God by an inspired apos- 



210 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

tie could induce to touch wine even as a medicine! 
And there is not a hint that Timothy ever touched 
it even then. But didn't Christ make wine at 
Oana? Yes. Then may we not drink it? Yes, 
when Almighty God makes it for you, by a miracle, 
out of water. Therefore, by logic of facts glanced 
at, in experience, science, in Scripture, in safety to 
the young, in non-complicity Avith the gigantic evil 
in any form, we salute our loyal banner with cheers, 
and keep it flying over the citadel of total abstinence, 
bearing our brave legend, "No surrender! No com- 
promise!" 

Key. J. 0. Peck, D. D. 



THE DEACON'S SUNDAY-SCHOOL SERMON. 



A DEAR old deacon in my State was cursed with a 
high license pulpit, but was so loyal to the 
church that he took as Gospel all that fell from the 
desk. So, when his pastor pushed high license, 
he as Superintendent of the Sunday-school said: 
" Teach it to the children; as the trees are bent, the 
twigs should be inclined." So in his homely way he 
turned the sermons into language the children could 
understand, and made a talk for high license before 
the Sunday-school. 

"Dear boys and girls/' began the deacon, "you 
know it's very naughty to drink beer and whisky. 
So, too, it's naughty to sell them without a license, 
or with a cheap license. But when the State orders 






FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 211 

high license, and the town makes every saloon- 
keeper pay it, $500 out of what he gets for making 
drunkards, it isn't naughty any longer to sell beer 
and whisky, but a real nice, respectable business 
like selling sugar or hymn books. And your blessed 
papas don't like to have a fifty dollar saloon close by 
their store; but with a five hundred dollar one each 
side they know that all good people will like to visit 
their store. So, when bad men get drunk and swear 
and fight and roll into the gutter before the five 
hundred dollar saloon, your high license papas know 
that's a blessing, and they must thank God every 
day that blessings fall so thick about them. 

" You see it all clear, don't you, children? If not, 
you must be patient, and remember your eyes will 
grow bigger, like pa's, some day. Of course, too, 
your fine mammas never visit the wife of that fifty 
dollar rum-seller; but quick as he grows so good 
and respectable that he pays his town $500 a year as 
its share of what he gets by making drunkards and 
drunkards' wives and children, and the old tax- 
payers pat him on the back, why then, of course, 
your fine mammas go right off and visit his wife, and 
find her just lovely, and ask her over to tea; don't 
they? You know an advance of $450 in license 
works a great change of heart and manners in the 
saloon-keeper and all his family; when he pays $50 
he's a brute, but when he pays $500 he's a gentleman. 

"You keep on seeing it, don't you, children? 
Maybe, though, you can't see why, if it's awful 
wicked for a fifty dollar license to fill a man's boots 



212 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

with snakes and his head with the crazy, and turn 
his hands into double fists, and send him home to 
knock down his wife and kick his little boy and girl 
into the street — if this is dreadful wicked, maybe 
you can't quite see why it's all right and respectable 
for a five hundred dollar license to do the same 
thing. But it'll come clear to you when you grow 
up and read the Bible the way lots o' men do now. 
Then you'll see that what's all wrong standing alone, 
is all right standing on $500. 

"Maybe, too, pet lambs, you don't now quite see 
how, if it's wrong to drink liquors at any license, 
it's right as can be to sell them at any license, coax- 
ing men to drink them. But wait till you get big, 
and hear men talk who know a pious lot about high 
license. Then you'll see that the words in the Lord's 
prayer — 'Lead us not into temptation' — don't mean 
anything now, the world's got to be so smart. And 
when the license preachers get up a new version of 
the Testament, I suppose they'll leave out all that 
nonsense. 

"One thing more, sweet ones: Don't forget what 
a high license is to poor towns. Why, quite often it 
builds a new jail — and fills it. Isn't that real good 
of it? So, if any of you die drunkards, or drunk- 
ards' wives, it'll be a warm comfort to you to re- 
member that, by living drunk, or with a drunkard, 
you've paid to support your town and country, 
almost one-tenth of what they've paid to kill you. 

"You must remember, too, that it's because in- 
temperance is wrong that high license is right. It's 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 213 

so much, you see, like Prohibition; for you can 
easily see that ' a half loaf's better'n no bread/ if 
'tis poison. 

"Now, good-by, children; and if ever you want 
to be constable, or go to Congress, and want the 
taxes collected in a tumbler, don't object to being 
cursed, only charge high for it." 

The Sunday-school scholars laughed and called 
the deacon crazy, their fathers got to thinking, and 
the pastor got into a passion, but was afterward con- 
verted and became a good man. 

James Clement Ambrose. 



HOW TO CUR-TAIL THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC, 



IT was in Arcady, The Council of State, made up 
of patriarchs with gentle eyes and long beards, sat 
meditating on measures pertaining to the public 
weal. The door was suddenly thrown open and a 
lad, breathless, with cheeks flushed and eyes bulging 
out with excitement, after several vain efforts to ar- 
ticulate, at length succeeded in saying, " Your 
Honors, — there's a mad dog — rampaging the streets! " 

"Mad dog rampaging the streets! " 

In a moment all was confusion. The aged coun- 
sellors sprang to their feet and stood silent with 
suppressed excitement. Then as with one impulse 
they all hastened to the front windows of the Con- 
silium. 

"There he is!" cried out one of them presently. 



214 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

"Where? Where? " 

"See him? Yonder by the Cross-roads at the 
Market!" 

" Ah, yes! And, oh, horrors! how he is foaming 
and raging! Woe to any helpless ones that may 
chance to come before him." 

"See by the Pantheon," cried another; the chil- 
dren are just coming from morning school! They 
will surely be bitten by this mad beast! " 

And bitten they were. One and another of them 
were torn by his poisonous fangs. 

" Oh, this is horrible! " cried one of the venerable 
men at the window. 

"What shall be done about it?" 

" Aye, that's the practical question, what shall be 
done about it? " 

'•'Let us consult the Legalia Convella! " 

The Legalia Convella were the Books of Law, the 
accumulated wisdom of many ages. The sages sat 
solemnly bending over the books. Day after day 
they had turned over the parchment leaves with no 
mentionable results. Meanwhile the original mad 
dog had bitten many others, and there were now 
scores and hundreds of raging curs, foaming at the 
lips, hiding at every corner and ready to spring forth 
upon the passers-by. 

The people mourned. There was lamentation in 
almost every house. People were bitten and limped 
or were carried to their homes, where, after weeks of 
lingering pain, they died in awful spasms. Still the 
deliberations went on at the Consilium. The a^ed 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 215 

functionaries were unwilling to do anything without 
the authority of law, and as yet they had been able 
to find nothing. At length, as they were poring 
over the Convella, a gleam of sudden joy lighted the 
face of one of them and he cried, "I have it; here 
it is!" 

They looked up eagerly, then all bending over the 
book read as follows: 

" Be it ordained : That in case any beast shall so 
rage and rave as to endanger the public safety, his 
tail shall forthwith be cut off." 

" His tail cutoff!" 

"What good will that do? A dog don't bite with 
his tail." 

"No, but he isn't apt to bite so hard if his tail is 
cut off." 

"We don't believe it! We don't believe it!" 
cried many voices! 

" Well, anyway, if we abbreviate the tails of these 
dogs, we shall be better able to regulate their doings." 

"Why so?" 

" Because there won't be so much of the dogs to 
regulate." 

" And besides we shall lend a respectable air to the 
whole business in this way." 

"How?" 

"Why, after cutting off their tails, it will be evi- 
dent that the law has nothing more against them. 
This will make rabid dogs respectable, and biting a 
legitimate business." 

" Yes, and it will increase our revenues." 



2i(3 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

" How do you make that out?" 

" Why, we can levy on the people a tax of one dol- 
lar for every tail cut off." 

" Enough of this nonsense. What we want to do 
is to get rid of this whole infernal business. A dog 
with his tail cut off is just as hard to regulate as a 
dog with a tail a yard long. And it is no economy 
to increase the public revenues by a drain on the 
people's purses. Neither do you gain anything by 
making mad dogs respectable and a bad business le- 
gitimate. What we want to do is simply and solely 
to stop this rabid biting in the streets." (It was a 
prohibitionist who spoke — a fanatic.) 

Then there was silence for a long while. The 
Regulators could find nothing to say. 

" I have it, I have it! " at length cried one. 

"Where?" 

Then he read: 

"Be it ordained: That in case any beast shall so 
rage and rave as to endanger the public safety, his 
tail shall forthwith be cut off." 

"Why, that's precisely what Ave had before." 

"Yes, but it is enough; it will suppress the evil; 
no need of our exceeding the law." 

"How do you make that out?" 

" Why, don't you see, the law doesn't say where 
the dog's tail shall be cut off!" 

"Well?" 

" Suppose we cut it off just back of his ears." 

This was approved. 

The thing was done. 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 217 

The dogs' tails were cat off just back of their ears. 
That was curtailing the business with a vengeance. 

It was prohibition. There was no regulation 
about it, 

But this curtailing proved most effective. The 
mad-dog business was done with forever. 

Everybody said, "Why didn't we think of it be- 
fore?" 

And when the old counsellor died who had con- 
ceived the happy thought, they built a monument 
over him bearing this inscription: 

TO THE MEMORY OF TEETOTALIS PROHIBITUS, 

Who originated the maxim, " The proper place to curtail 
a bad business is just back of its ears.' ? 



I'LL TAKE WHAT FATHER TAKES. 



TVas in the flow'ry month of June, 
The sun was in the west, 
When a merry, blithesome company 
Met at a public feast. 

Around the room rich banners spread, 

And garlands fresh and gay: 
Friend greeted friend right joyously 

Upon that festal day. 

The board was filled with choicest fare; 

The guests sat down to dine; 
Some called for "bitters" some for "stout, 

x\nd some for rosy wine. 



•• 



218 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

Among this joyful company 

A modest youth appeared. 
Scarce sixteen summers had he seen: 

No specious snare he feared. 

An empty glass before the youth 

Soon drew the waiter near. 
"What will you take, sir/' he inquired — 

"Stout, bitter, mild, or clear? 

" We've rich supplies of foreign port, 
We've first-class wine and cakes." 

The youth, with guileless look, replied: 
"111 take what father takes." 

Swift as an arrow went the words 

Into his father's ears, 
And soon a conflict deep and strong 

Awoke terrific fears. 

The father looked upon his son, 

Then gazed upon the wine; 
God! he thought, were he to taste, 

Who could the end divine? 

Have I not seen the strongest fall, 

The fairest led astray? 
And shall I on my only son 

Bestow a curse this day? 

No; Heaven forbid! "Here, waiter, bring 

Bright water unto me. 
My son will take what father takes — 

My drink shall water be." 

W. Hoyle. 



FOR READINGS AND RECITATIONS 219 

DRINK'S DOINGS. 



GRIM war has slain its millions, 
Plague filled its myriad graves, 
And thousands have gone down to deaths 
Amid the ocean waves. 

The mountain-rending earthquake 

Hath many, many slain, 
And fire and famine seized their prey 

In city, town, and plain. 

But drink, the fell destroyer, 
Hath slaughtered more by far 

Than earthquake, famine, fire, or sea, 
Or pestilence or war. 



WHO'LL BE THE DRUNKARDS THEN. 



My friends and brethren, Templars true, 
Some questions I would ask. 
Who'll occupy the place you fill, 
Who'll fight the demon of the still, 

When you have passed away? 
Our boys, say you, will soon be men, 
And they will fight the demon then. 
They'll occupy the place we fill, 
And work and pray and labor till 

There dawns a brighter day. 



220 TEMPERANCE SELECTIONS 

Who, think you, then will keep saloons, 

Gin-palaces, and dives? 
Who'll brew and mash, distil and sell? 
I think that may be I can tell 

Who'll be the liquor-men: 
The boys Good Templars cannot reach, 
The little folks we fail to teach; 
The bright-eyed boys Fve seen in schools, 
Who're taught that temperance men are fools. 

They'll be the liquor-men. 

Who'll fill the jails in after-years, 

By alcohol enslaved? 
Who'll spend their earnings for strong drink? 
Just pause awhile now, brother; think! 

Who'll be the drunkards then? 
The boys who wander up and down, 
The little smokers you have met — 
The boys with pipe or cigarette — 

Will be the drunkards then. 

Now, then, should we just let things run, 

As we are apt to do? 
Or should we start with willing feet 
To gather in from lane or street 

These boys of eight and ten? 

For every one we train aright 

May live to be a man of might, 

May keep his pledge, and then, you see, 

One thing is certain — that is, he 

Wou't be a drunkard then. 

Thos. R. Thompson. 



■♦ENTERTAINMENTS.*- 



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fT is seldom so many requests have been made for a 
book as have come to us for a work of this character. 
The want has not only been widespread but of long 
duration as well. An earlier issue would have been 
made had the right kind of material offered or the ser- 
vices of a suitable editor been secured. We have satis- 
fied ourselves in both these respects, and are confident 
our judgment will be confirmed by every person using 
the book. 

While each article is new and original, none have 
been inserted without first being critically examined, 
not only for their attractiveness and literary merit, but 
also for their particular adaptability to some of the vari- 
ous phases of Sunday School and Church Entertain- 
ments. 

The articles are largely in the nature of Dialogues, 
Tableaux, Recitations, Concert Pieces, Motion Songs, 
and Short Dramas, all based upon or illustrating some 
biblical truths. In several instances familiar bible 
stories are dramatized with simplicity and yet with 
power. 

Special care has been taken to make provision for such 
occasions as Christmas, New Year's, Easter, and Thanks- 
giving, so that no time or season is without a subject. 

Sold by all Booksellers and Newsdealers, or mailed 
upon receipt of price. 

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Sanday * Sehool * Selections 

By JOHN H. SECHTEL 
JSngreived. Cover. 200 Pageg 

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THIS book is much broader in scope than its title 
implies. The pastor will find much in it to 
point a moral or adorn a sermon ; the super- 
intendent to illustrate and enforce the Sunday School 
Lesson ; the teacher to illumine his teaching ; and the 
general reader to refresh his souh 

With about one hundred and fifty selections of 
unusual merit, something will be found adapted to every 
period of life and to every occasion and condition 
where a choice reading or recitation may be wanted. 
The Church Social, the Sunday School Concert, 
Teachers' Gatherings, Meetings of Christian Endeavor 
Societies, Young Men's Christian Associations, Tem- 
perance Unions, Anniversary occasions, and every as- 
semblage of a religious or spiritual character has been 
provided for. 

In point of newness and freshness few compilations 
compare with this. The selections are drawn from 
many sources, the result of years of patient gathering. 
But few of them have appeared before in book form, 
and nothing hackneyed has been admitted. 

The lofty spiritual ideals presented by many of the 
authors and the rich literary dress in which their thoughts 
are clad will command for this volume a place high 
above that occupied by rr.ost books of its class. 



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